


Our Mutual Undoing: Intertwined

by deadwestern, The_Cellar_Dweller



Series: Our Mutual Undoing [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Bath Sex, Canon-Typical Violence, Car Sex, Crossdressing, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, First Kiss, First Meetings, Hallucinations, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Manipulation, Mpreg, Nightmares, Office Blow Jobs, Oral Sex, Pet Names, Season/Series 01, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-10-03 03:54:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 123,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17276612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadwestern/pseuds/deadwestern, https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Cellar_Dweller/pseuds/The_Cellar_Dweller
Summary: Following the script and plot of NBC's Hannibal, Bec Reyes and Huesyth Cavalli have taken the roles of the leading characters FBI criminal profiler Will Graham and Dr. Hannibal Lecter.Unlike the leads, they will share different experiences, emotions, and over time form what may become a long-lasting relationship amid the madness.





	1. “Apéritif”

Sirens echoed in his ears as police officers scattered about the suburban home, running in and out of his line of sight as the first body was zipped up into the body bag and rolled out on a gurney. Bec stared blankly from in front of the dining room window and into the family room where the wife’s now drained body was splayed out on the floor in a pool of blood. He closed his eyes and the noise began to drain out with the swing of the pendulum of light that passed behind his eyelids.

Once his eyes were opened again, the officers disappeared one by one, the blood and bodies were cleaned away. He was moved backward swiftly, one step after the other, until he was taken outside and the door was closed again before him, untouched.

_The killer stood silently before the house before taking a breath and watching as the wife, alive and breathing, passed in front of one of the large living room windows._

_Marching with conviction back up to the bright red door, he kicked it in. It slammed into the wall as it swung open and made the security alarms blare in ears. He raised his gun and immediately shot two bullets into the husband who was swiftly making his down the stairs to check on the commotion. He fell backward onto the stairs, blood painting the walls beside him._

“I shoot Mr. Marlow twice, severing his jugular and carotid with near-surgical precision. He will die watching me take what is his away from him. This is my design,”

_The killer lowered the gun upon hearing the wife’s fearful whimpers. He turned to see her desperately trying to contact the security company from the device on the wall but was shaking too much to press the right buttons in time. He raised the gun and shot into her neck, blood splattering in dark rivulets onto the light wall in front of her as she collapsed onto the floor._

“I shoot Mrs. Marlow expertly through the neck. This is not a fatal wound. The bullet misses every artery. She’s paralyzed before it leaves her body… which doesn’t mean she can’t feel pain. It just means she can’t do anything about it… this is my design.”

_The alarm still blaring, the killer pressed the button to shut off the sound and dial the security company._

_“This is DDX Security. Who am I speaking with?” A man’s voice came from the speaker._

“I need the incident report from the Home Security Company,” Bec asked one of the officers as he dabbed away the drop of blood threatening to slip out of his nose and they passed him one of the files they were holding. He flipped it open, reading through the transcript. “This was reported as a false alarm? There was a false alarm last week… he tapped their phone.” He closed the report, handing it back to the officer.

“He recorded Mrs. Marlow’s conversation with the security company.”

_The killer held a recorder up to the speaker, pressing play on the first audio file. “Teresa Marlow,” The wife’s voice answered._

_“Can you please confirm your password for security purposes?” The man asked._

_The next audio played. “Teakettle.”_

_“Thank you, Mrs. Marlow. We detected a front door alarm.”_

_Robotically, the wife’s voice answered again. “Yeah, sorry about that.”_

_“Is there anyone in the house with you at this time, Mrs. Marlow?”_

_“I’m just here with my husband.” The bloody, still alive body of the wife stared at the killer with motionless eyes as he continued clicking down the audios, feeling the conversation ending along with her life._

_“Do you require any further assistance?”_

_Another final click. “No. Thank you so much for calling.”_

“And this is when it gets truly horrifying for Mrs. Marlow.”

 

**FBI ACADEMY, QUANTICO, VIRGINIA**

“Everyone’s thought about killing someone, one way or another...” One of the students in the far right corner of the lecture hall coughed softly but tried to smother it with their arm. “Be it your own hand or the hand of God. Now _think_ about killing Mrs. Marlow.”

He clicked the button on his remote and the slide on the projector above and behind him changed to a close up of Mrs. Marlow’s body still lying in a darkened pool of blood, probably hours after the attack took place and the killer decided to leave. Bec focused on anything in the room except for the student’s faces. The shapelessness of their hair or clothes or body in the darkened lecture hall but not their faces.

“Why did she deserve this? Tell me your design. Tell me who you are.”

Bec placed the projector remote back onto his podium as the students began to shuffle up from the seats. They exited swiftly out of the room, some sluggishly from being bored into near sleep by Bec’s lecturing. He couldn’t really blame them but he might be worried about them sleeping soundly after staring at the images of a murdered couple that were plastered over Bec’s head.

The empath could feel his glasses riding low on his nose but chose to ignore them as he thumbed through his notes for the next lecture. A figure dressed in what seemed to be a dark colored suit came out of the crowd, approaching him instead of leaving, out of the corner of his eye. A tall, dark-skinned man with a robust build and shortly shaved dark hair speckled with greys.

“Mr. Reyes,” The figure called to him. Bec’s eyes flickered up to the man’s tie, red with grey lines. “Special Agent Jack Crawford. I head the Behavioral Science Unit.”

“We’ve met,” Bec stated dryly as he shook the man’s hand firmly over his podium.

“Yes. We had a disagreement when we opened up the museum,” Jack reminded.

Realistically, Bec has had many disagreements with people in the past.

“I disagreed with what you named it,” Bec stated, still not looking up from the papers he was organizing before slipping them into his bag.

“The, uh, Evil Minds Research Museum.”

Bec outwardly cringed at the reminder. “It’s a little hammy, Jack.”

Jack picked up the remote and clicked to a new picture on the projector. “I see you’ve hitched your horse to a teaching post... and I also understand that it’s difficult for you to be social.”

“Well, I’m just talking at them. I’m not listening to them. I-It’s not social.”

Jack was trying to keep eye contact with Bec as the younger man looked anywhere but at the other man.

“I see. May I?” Jack’s hand came into view in Bec’s peripheral vision. He wasn’t really asking as before the empath could answer, he moved Bec’s falling glasses back into place on his face. Bec only flinched slightly out of surprise but then held deathly still, staring blankly just past the other man’s face until he pulled his hand away from him. “Where do you fall on the spectrum?”

“My horse is hitched to a post that is closer to Asperger’s and autistics than narcissists and sociopaths,” Bec answered.

“But you can empathize with narcissists and sociopaths.”

“I can empathize with anybody. It’s less to do with the personality disorders and more with an active imagination.” Bec was shoving his notes into his bag impatiently, quickly growing bored with the questions the agent was asking. He’d heard them all before too many times.

“Um…” Jack put his hand down on the top of the podium to still Bec’s jerky movements. “Can I… borrow your imagination?”

 

“Eight girls abducted from eight different Minnesota campuses all in the last eight months,” Jack explained. Bec had no idea how they got this far and couldn’t remember saying yes to the agent’s question but Jack had been following him around campus so much that he finally agreed to lend his expertise.

“I thought there were seven,” Bec claimed.

“There _were_ ,” Jack agreed.

Bec raised a questioning eyebrow at the other man before he figured out what he meant. “When did you tag the eighth?”

“About three minutes before I walked into your lecture hall.”

People, students, and professors passed them by in a blur of unimportant shapes as they marched across campus. “You’re calling them abductions because you don’t have any bodies?”

“No bodies, no parts of bodies, nothing that comes out of bodies, nothing.”

“Well those girls weren’t taken from where you think they were taken.”

“Then where were they taken from?” Jack questioned.

“I don’t know,” It was a huffy answer but he didn’t have enough information to give the agent a clearer one. People always thought of him more as a psychic than an empath. “Someplace else.”

“All of them abducted on a Friday so they wouldn’t have to be reported missing until Monday. However, he’s covering his tracks he needs a weekend to do it.”

Jack gestured with his arm outstretched and his hand in front of Bec’s face. The empath looked skittishly into the room he was gesturing to and found they’d walked all the way back to Jack’s office. Small and symmetric with a lot of straight lines of mid-tone, muted colors but customized slightly in non-destructive ways like the potted plant in the corner or the lamp lighting the side table. They entered and Jack handed Bec a photo of a young woman with a defeated sigh. Dark hair and light eyes, she was smiling like she doesn’t have a fear in the world and all the time she could need.

Bec asked. “Number eight?”

“Elise Nichols,” Jack explained solemnly, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his dress pants. “Disappeared on Friday. Was supposed to house sit for her parents over the weekend, feed the cat. She never made it home.”

Bec thumbed through the files in front of him idly. “Yeah. One through seven are dead, don’t you think? He’s not keeping them around. He’s got himself a new one.”

“So we focus on Elise Nichols?”

Bec’s eyes flicked up to the wall where the faces of the girls were pinned with a map of where their bodies were discovered and information about their disappearances, each of them eerily similar to one another. He placed the photo he was holding back onto the board. “They’re all very… Mall of America. A lot of wind-chafed skin.”

“Same hair color, same eye color, roughly the same age, same height, same weight,” Jack listed off as he too scanned the faces. “So what is it about all these girls?”

The empath shook his head slightly. “I don’t know… it’s not about all of these girls. It’s about one of them. It’s like Willy Wonka, every girl he takes is a candy bar and hidden in amongst all those candy bars is the one, true intended victim. Which if we follow through with our metaphor is your golden ticket.”

“So is he warming up for his golden ticket or just reliving whatever it is he did to her?”

“The golden ticket wouldn't be the first taken and she wouldn’t be the last. He would- um, hide how special she was. I mean I would. Wouldn’t you?”

Bec turned away, expecting to grab his bag and leave the room and never hear from the agent again as he had done what was asked of him. It was enough information to at least lead them in a positive direction towards catching the killer.

But instead Jack, without looking away from the board pointed to Bec as he was making his escape. “I want you to get closer to this.”

“No,” Bec stated firmly as he turned back to the other man. “You have Heimlich at Harvard and Bloom at Georgetown. They do the same thing I do.”

“That’s not exactly true, is it?” Jack prompted once he faced Bec. “You have a very specific way of thinking about things.”

“Yes,” Bec muttered out in a detested breath. “Has there been a lot of discussion about the ‘specific’ way I think?”

"You made jumps you can’t explain, Bec-” “No, no. The _evidence_ explains.”

“Then help me find some evidence.”

Bec sighed heavily through his nose, scanning the room before landing on the wall of missing person reports again. “That may require me to be sociable.”

 

**DULUTH, MINNESOTA**

The evening was growing strong over the house by the time they had arrived at the home of the latest victim’s family, her distraught parents. In the living room, Bec’s eyes scanned over the shelves entirely dedicated to photos of Elise during different stages of her life. A happy, smiling child or a bright girl with a positive future. Apparently, only positive enough to get her a free ticket into the ground somewhere.

Her father sighed, heavy and unsteady with worry, behind Bec where he was sitting with his wife at their table, Jack standing before them. “She could’ve gone off by herself. She-She was a very interior young woman. Sh...She didn’t like living in her dorm. I could see how the pressure at school could’ve gotten to her. She likes trains. We’re thinking she just got on a train and…”

“...She looks like the other girls?” The mother intercepted.

Jack nodded. “Yes, she fits the profile.”

“Could Elise still be alive?” The father asked.

Jack paused a brief moment before answering. “We simply have no way of knowing.”

“How’s the cat?” Bec cut in abruptly, not turning to face the others as they conversed.

The mother questioned quizzically as if she might have heard him wrong. “What?”

Bec turned on his heel to address them again. “Well, how’s your cat? Elise was supposed to feed it. Was the cat weird when you came home? It must’ve been hungry. It didn’t eat all weekend.”

The couple looked to each other confusedly before the father went back to Bec and shrugged. “I-I didn’t notice.”

Bec nodded at the answer and looked at Jack to show he’d discovered something imperative. The older agent, understanding the look, excused the two of them from the conversation and followed Bec into the next room over. He gave Bec a knowing stare, awaiting what Bec had unscrambled from the few seconds of dialogue he’d had with the father.

“He took her from here,” Bec revealed in a hushed whisper. “She got on a train, she came home, she fed the cat… and he took her.”

Jack nodded and sighed, typing in a number on his phone before raising it to his ear. “The Nichols house is a crime scene. I need ERT immediately. I want Zeller, Katz, and Jimmy Price. Yes, and a photographer.”

Elise’s parents gasped as they heard, her mother clasping her hands and bringing them to her face to breath. “Why is it now a crime scene?” Her father asked.

Jack pulled the phone away from his ear and hung up the call.

“Can I see your daughter’s room?” Bec asked once he’d moved back into the dining room.

“Police were up there this morning,” Her father explained.

Despite this fact, Bec was lead upstairs by the father, pulling on rubber gloves as they neared the room and once they rounded the corner, the cat was pawing at the underside of the door as if begging to be let in. It meowed as they came closer and as the father reached for the knob to the room, Bec shot out a hand to halt his movements. “No, I’ll get that! Mr. Nichols, please put your hands in your pockets and avoid touching anything.”

“We’ve been in and out of here all day,” The father added.

“You… can hold the cat if it’s easier,” Bec said,

Though the other man looked down at him oddly, the father did bend down and pick the persistent feline up to hold. The door finally opened and Bec had made it a few steps into the dark room before he saw a body lying peacefully tucked under the covers in the middle of the bed as if sleeping.

“Elise…” The father called softly but Bec turned quickly to stop him before he could rush to his daughter’s side.

“I need you to leave the room,” Bec told him sternly but the father was hit with the realization that it was a body and not his daughter. The cat pounced out of his loosening arms before it could be dropped as the father instead grabbed onto Bec’s upper arms for support as he threatened to crumble in on himself.

It didn’t take long for Jack to find his way into the room as the FBI investigators began arriving on the scene but he was holding them off from the room for a short time.

He moved by Bec’s side as he told him. “Take your time. Whenever you’re ready to talk, you talk. If you don’t feel like it, you don’t talk. We’ll be downstairs. You let me know when you’re ready for us to come in.”

Jack slipped out of the room again. Red and blue lights were flashing behind the sheer curtains of Elise’s bedroom window and peering out beyond them revealed the parents being treated by a paramedic on the street below, at least three cop cars there to keep people away from the scene. The pendulum swung past his vision.

_The killer, standing over her tranquil form as she slept comfortably and safely within the walls of her own home, jumped into action as she shifted softly in her bed. Jumping over her and bearing down on her ribs with one of his knees, wrapping his hands tightly around her throat and squeezing with all of his strength. She had awoken then, hands gripping the killer’s wrists desperately as she fought away not only sleep but also lack of oxygen. He strangled her-_

“You’re Bec Reyes,” A voice cut through the scene.

Bec was pulled back out of his mind, eyes opening frantically as he found the source of the voice to be a petite, Korean woman about his age with long, black hair and a worn, brown leather jacket standing in front him. The lights had been turned on since he had entered his own imagination and she was wearing latex gloves so at least she was careful.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” Bec panted, catching his breath from being yanked out of his own head so quickly.

“You wrote the standard monograph on time of death by insect activity,” She said, smirking proudly and ignoring the unsteady breaths that Bec was pulling in. She motioned to the body with her head. “I found antler velvet in two of the wounds. You, uh, not real FBI?”

“I’m a, uh… special investigator.”

She raised her eyebrows at him in something akin to surprise. “Never been an FBI agent?”

“Um… strict screening procedures,” Bec explained.

“Detects instability,” The woman added before motioning at him with her chin and giving him a once over. “You unstable?”

Footsteps drew closer as Jack reentered the room, he scolded the woman. “Now, you know you’re not supposed to be in here.”

“I found antler velvet in two of the wounds like she was gored,” The woman explained again to the other agent. “I was looking for velvet in the other wounds but I was interrupted.”

Bec stepped away from the two as other scientists found their way into the room as well and made his way back to the other side of the bed.

“Hold on, ‘scuse me,” Another scientist cut in, a younger man with short, dark wavy hair and a leather jacket of his own. “Look, deer and elk pin their prey, okay? They put all their weight into their antlers to try to suffocate a victim. That’s how they would kill, like, a fox or a coyote.”

“Alright, Elise Nichols was strangled, suffocated, her ribs are broken,” Jack listed as the mental picture began presenting itself.

“Antler velvet is rich in nutrients. It actually promotes healing. He may have put it there on purpose,” Bec offered, trying to ignore how the woman kept glancing his way curiously as if studying him.

“You think he was trying to heal her?” Jack asked, slightly skeptical due to the violence that was displayed before them.

Bec explained further. “He wanted to undo as much as he could… given that he’d already killed her.”

“He put her back where he found her.”

Bec shook his head slightly, looking down at the body. “No, whatever he did to the others he couldn’t do to her.”

“Is this his golden ticket?” Jack asked the empath.

Bec sighed softly. “No… This is an apology.”

The others in the room looked at him in either a questioning or slightly weirded out way. Bec dabbed at the droplet of blood threatening to make its way out of his nose. “Does anyone have any aspirin?”

 

**WOLFTRAP, VIRGINIA**

The flight home through the night went by in a blur as he shook tablet after tablet of aspirin from the bottle. Moving from plane to car, the drive back home was as uneventful as usual but driving through the woods, up his driveway and parking at his home made it worth it. He felt the stress and headaches he’d accumulated throughout the day slowly melt off of him as he marched up onto his familiar porch, fumbling with his keys in the low light before the door finally popped open.

The house was dark like he’d left it except for the steady, neon glow of the heat lamps floating above the terrariums that leaked through the open doorway right in front of the front door that lead into what used to be his dining room. He never used it as a dining room though and decided to make it far more useful. He threw his bag onto the nearest chair as he entered the house, shrugging off his jacket and joining it with the bag. Stepping through the doorway and into the overly warm room, his eyes fell on Sunday as he wiggled insistently around his terrarium that was set up in the middle of the room, unlike the others that were pressed in pairs right next to each other against three of the other walls. Sunday, a Northern copperhead and the only snake Bec owned that wasn’t born at some kind of pet shop, was awake and moving about his tank in a way that Bec knew meant he was ready to be fed.

Some of the others, Saturday, a female king cobra, and Wednesday, the easily spooked Milk Snake, were also awake and moving about their tanks that were bathed in a warm, red and orange glow from their overhead lamps. The light wasn’t bright and blinding but they lit the room almost eerily. It made Bec’s not so frequent guests uncomfortable but Bec was relaxed by its warmth and the feeling of home that it provides. He passed the tanks and stepped through the next doorway into the kitchen, rummaging in the cabinet under the sink before pulling out a box and placing it on the counter so he could stand again. Taking it back into the room and placing it on top of Sunday’s tank as he pushed back the lid to greet the serpent.

“Hi, Sunday,” Bec beamed happily.

The copperhead peered up at him with his yellow tinted eyes as if waiting for something. The man sighed at the snake before opening the box lid and pulling up a live mouse, squeaking and flinging itself around, by its tail. He plopped the mouse into the tank and Sunday flicked his tongue at the air, tasting for its location before chasing it about slightly and sinking his teeth into it with lightning speed. It thrashed about as it was pumped with Sunday’s venom but soon the mouse’s body went limp, only twitching slightly due to its nerves constricting. Sunday pulled his fangs from the body once he was sure that the mouse was dead and began working it into his mouth. Bec closed the box again and slid the lid back into place on top of the terrarium.

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Bec nagged, no real heat behind it as he was just as happy as the serpent was.

He returned the box to its place in the cabinet under the sink and straightened up again, he pulled the bottle of whiskey out of the high cabinet and poured himself a glass. Sipping from it idly as he enjoyed the quiet serenity of his house but his eyes were drawn to the slight abnormalities. The cabinets and tables all had baby proofing covers on the sharp corners. Any glass cups were placed on the highest shelves that were almost out of Bec’s reach. The glass panels of the snakes’ terrariums and his windows were all reinforced and harder to break and the cutlery like knives and forks were in drawers that could be locked. The rest of the house shared the same kind of safety-proofing as the kitchen and snake room did.

As his throat tightened, he ran the tips of his fingers over the indentation of skin that ran in a long line of lightened skin across his throat. It lost the jagged edge that it used to have when he was younger but it was still prominent and easy to spot on his tan skin. He swallowed the lump forming in his throat as he thought back on how his younger, dumber self ran directly into the farming supplies and had been pinned beneath the blade of the scythe. Bloody, screaming, scared out of his mind, his father had to rush in to save him before he could squirm in the wrong direction and end up slicing a vein.

His hand was yanked back and with a sigh, he ran a hand through the long, brown curls on the top of his head, downed the rest of his drink before placing the glass carelessly into the sink and escaping back to his bedroom to retire for the night

The house fell silent again as Bec settled into bed for the night but it didn’t last long. His eyes opened without him wanting them too and his gaze bore into the ceiling of his room before his head slowly turned to his right side. Elise Nichols lay by his side, cold and unmoving and staring into the dark abyss above her with cloudy, unfocused eyes. Blood leaked through the sheet covering her body and once Bec tried to reach for her she floated upwards like a puppet on a string, the sheet sliding off of her and revealing a bloody mess staining the front and sides of her nightgown.

Bec awoke again with a start, his sweaty face was pushed into his pillow and the sheets were already soaked with the same sweat. He huffed loudly through his unsteady breathing and peeled himself out of the bed to place a towel over where he’d been laying. Sitting back in the center of the bed, he pulled the soaked nightshirt off of his body and threw it to the ground in frustration. He pulled another towel over him like a blanket, rolling onto his side again and trying desperately to fall back into yet another fitful slumber. His last thought being an uneasy echo in his head with a Cheshire smile of sharp teeth: _I told you so._

 

Despite that thought following him into his waking life, Bec returned to work the next day despite knowing that Jack would probably hunt him down to talk about the case. Everything in his being told him not too but he’d already been pushed into it so he might as well see the case through.

After a few hours of lecturing, he had excused himself from his lecture hall and rushed to the nearest men’s room to dunk his head into a sink of cold water. His head felt hot and he wondered if he was getting some type of fever or flu. Red bled into his blurry vision before he finally yanked his head out of the water, running a paper towel over his face in an attempt to dry the wet skin. Footsteps echo in behind him as he peered into the mirror to see Jack approaching him.

“What are you doing in here?” Jack asked immediately.

Bec turned, drying his hands with the same towel before he deadpanned. “I enjoy the smell of urinal cake.”

“Me too. We need to talk.” Jack looked back as another man entered the bathroom as well and shouted. “Use the ladies’ room!”

The man was startled but backed out quickly as Bec leaned back against the sink counter and drew his eyes away from the agent as he returned his attention to him.

Jack paced slightly but his eyes stayed trained on the empath. “Do you respect my judgment, Bec? Hmm?”

The younger man wanted to say no. He had only known the older agent for a few days but he decided against it, nodding slightly and muttering. “Yes.”

“Good, because we will stand a better chance at catching this guy with you in the saddle.”

“I’m in the saddle. Just- um, confused which direction I’m pointing. I don’t know this kind of psychopath. Never read about him. I don’t even _know_ if he’s a psychopath. He’s not insensitive. He's not _shallow_.”

“You _know_ something about him; otherwise, you wouldn’t have said, ‘This is an apology’. What is he apologizing for?”

Bec paced the length of the sink counter, rattling his scrambled thoughts around in his brain. “He couldn't honor her. He feels bad!”

“Well, feeling bad defeats the purpose of being a psychopath, doesn’t it?” Jack pointed out, a blatantly obvious fact.

“ _Yes!_ It does,” “Then what kind of crazy is he!?” Jack shouted, his words echoing slightly off the tiled walls of the bathroom.

Bec paused for a breath, speaking more softly than the agent. “He… couldn’t show her he loved her, so he put her corpse back where he killed it. Whatever crazy that is.”  
Jack narrowed his eyes questioningly. “You think he loves these girls?”

Growing frustrated, Bec ran a hand over his forehead, still too warm to the touch, and pushed his long bangs out of his eyes, sighing heavily. “He loved one of them… and y-yes, I think by association he has some form of love for the others.”

“There was no semen, there was no saliva. Elis Nichols died a virgin. She stayed that way-”

Bec shook his head, a wave of disgust hitting him hard enough to make him nauseous. “That’s _not_ how he’s loving them! He wouldn't disrespect them that way! He doesn’t want these girls to suffer. He kills them quickly and-... in his thinking, with mercy.”

Jack paused to absorb what Bec had said. “A sensitive psychopath… risked getting caught so he could tuck Elise Nichols back into bed.”

“He has to take the next girl soon,” Bec explained. “He knows he’s gonna get caught, one way or the other.”

 

After the shouting match in the bathroom, Jack begrudgingly said he had business to attend to and excused himself from the conversation. Bec agreed to return to the autopsy lab where the body was being processed to check on the forensics team’s findings. He stood back, away from the autopsy table with arms crossed over his chest. The three scientists there were the same ones who’d found their way into Elise’s bedroom the other night. The Korean woman, the young man, and an older man with short, grey hair. Beverly Katz, Brian Zeller, and Jimmy Price. They unzipped the body of Elise from the body bag she’d been kept in.

Jimmy sighed dramatically. “Okay, I tried her skin for prints. Of course, nothing. I did get a hand spread off her neck.”

“Report say anything about nails?” Beverly asked.

Brian cut in to explain. “Fingernails were smudged when we took the scrapings. Scrapings were from her own palms when she scratched them. She never scratched him.”

“Piece of metal is all we got,” Beverly disclosed, disappointment lacing her words.

“We should be looking at plumbers, steamfitters, tool workers…” Bec spoke up, immediately regretting as all eyes in the room turned to him.

It didn’t last long however as they looked at each other with puzzled expressions and Bec sighed deeply. He stared into the darkness of the body bag before suddenly, dark was all he could see. Elise’s limp body emerged from the blackness, her nightgown clean, before four hooks pierced her body in the same locations as the wounds they’d cataloged, blood soaking through the white fabric of her gown.

Brian’s voice cut through the sight and Bec let his arms fall to his sides. “Other injuries are probably, but not inclusively, post-mortem. So… _not_ gored.”

“She has lots of piercings that look like they were caused by deer antlers. I didn’t say the deer was responsible for putting them there,” Beverly defended and Brian backed off.

“She was mounted on them,” Bec stated clearly, gaining the others’ attention again. “Like hooks. She may have been bled.”

“Her liver was removed. You see that? He took it out,” Brian discovered, Jimmy confirming his findings as he dug deeper. “And then- yep, he put it back in.”

“Why would he cut it out if he was just gonna sew it back in again?” Jimmy asked.

Bec connected the dots faster than the others in the room and fought back a gag that tried to force his way up his throat. “There was something wrong with the meat…”

The men looked at him before Brian spoke again. “She has liver cancer.”

“Yeah, he’s, um he’s eating them.”

The scientists in the room couldn’t contain the disturbed disgust that pulled at their features upon the realization.

 

**BALTIMORE, MARYLAND**

Franklyn reached out a desperate hand, blubbering through a sob. “Please…”

Huesyth stared blankly at the other man before reaching over to the side table next to him and pulling up the box of tissues, reaching it out for the other man to pull a couple of sheets from him while whimpering. “Thank you.”

Settling back into his seat as Franklyn noisily blew his nose into the sheets and a sob wracked his body again. “I hate being this neurotic…” Franklyn explained through his tears.

“If you weren’t neurotic, Franklyn, you would be something _much_ worse.”

Franklyn straightened up before dropping one of his crumbled, snotty tissues onto the glass table to his left. Huesyth stared at it in disdain before returning his gaze to his patient.

“Our brain is designed to experience anxiety in short bursts,” Huesyth rested his notebook on the table with the tissue box. “Not the prolonged duress yours has seemed to enjoy. That’s why you feel as though a lion were on the verge of devouring you. Franklyn, you have to convince yourself the lion is not in the room. When it is, I assure you,” Huesyth leaned forward, resting his arms on his legs. “You will know.”

The rest of the session past with uneventful results, they hadn’t seemed to even pass the starting line in Franklyn’s quest for treatment. Huesyth was content in saying that they probably would never get any progress done but was polite in escorting Franklyn to his usual exit through the foyer. Upon the door opening, however, a man was sitting in one of the chairs who wasn’t supposed to be there.

He stood quickly once the other two men left and immediately greeted Franklyn, who had walked out ahead of Huesyth, sticking his hand out for the shorter patient to shake. “Dr. Cavalli. I’m, uh, Special Ag-”

“Oh, I’m, uh, actually-” Franklyn stammered, shaking the man’s hand unsteadily.

“I hate to be discourteous, but this is a private exit for my patients,” Huesyth cut in firmly.

The man looked at Huesyth for a brief second before laughing slightly in embarrassment. “Oh, Dr. Cavalli,” He reached a hand into the interior breast pocket of his suit jacket, pulling out his badge and allowing Huesyth to read it over. “Sorry. Um, I’m Special Agent Jack Crawford, FBI. May I come in?”

“You may wait in the waiting room,” Huesyth stated before turning back to his patient. “Franklyn, I’ll see you next week.”

“Y-Yes,” Franklyn stammered, fumbling around the agent on his way to the door.

“Unless, of course, this is about him,” Huesyth added before the anxious shorter man could make his way out of the room. Franklyn turned back, startled by the comment and looking between the doctor and the agent.

“No, no, this is all about you,” Jack cleared and Franklyn nodded in relief as he finally was allowed to leave the awkward situation.

Huesyth returned to his office alone and checked his schedule to see if any ‘Jack Crawford’s had made an appointment without him knowing. There were none as he expected. With a soft sigh, he slid the schedule back into his desk, straightened the dusty blue jacket of his suit and went to the entrance to let the agent into his office.

“Please, come in,” Huesyth notified, allowing Agent Crawford to finally step into his office. As Huesyth closed the door behind him, Jack looked around the large room with bemused surprise about the space. “So, may I ask how this is all about me?”

“You can ask, but I may have to ask you a few questions first,” Jack added before motioning back to the door. “You expecting another patient?”

Huesyth confirmed. “We’re all alone.”

“Oh, good,” Jack turned away as he began idly marching about the room at a leisurely pace. “No secretary?”

“She was predisposed to romantic whims. Followed her heart to the United Kingdom,” Huesyth explained as he followed after the agent. “Sad to see her go.”

“Wow,” Jack exclaimed as he found himself at the back table on the left side of Huesyth’s office where he had some of his more intricate architectural artwork laid out. Jack carefully thumbed through the pile, lifting each sheet up by its corner to avoid smearing the graphite of the pencil the art was drawn in. “Are these yours, Doctor?”

“Among the firsts,” Huesyth disclosed fondly. He’d drawn most of them during his stay in the inner cities of Italy, wasting time away as his brother’s release date drew closer. Pointing to one specifically that Jack had uncovered, the lines were clean but uninteresting and lacked the attention to the depth that his newer art held. “The view from my apartment window in Paris from when I was a young man.”

“The amount of detail is incredible,” Jack complimented.

Huesyth nodded with a thin smile. “I learned very early that a scalpel cuts better points than a pencil sharpener.”

He picked up said objects from the table, carving a few shaves off of the pencil’s tip in practiced strokes to perfect the point.

“Well, now I understand why your drawings earned you an internship at Johns Hopkins,” Jack commented before stepping away from the table and walking back into the center of the office.

Huesyth barely moved but looked slightly over his shoulder as he spoke, grip still steady on the scalpel in his hand as he wondered if this interaction will end the same way it did with the last FBI agent that found themselves at his mercy. “I’m beginning to suspect you’re investigating me, Agent Crawford.”

Huesyth turned to face the other man with a stoic face but the agent laughed. “No, no. No, you were referred to me by Alana Bloom in the psychology department at Georgetown.”

Huesyth relaxed the tightness in his coiled body at the familiar name and followed in Jack’s steps, stopping short to place the scalpel and pencil safely on his desk. “Most psychology departments are filled with personality deficients. Dr. Bloom would be the exception.”

Jack laughed in agreement. “Yes, she would. Yes, she would. She told me you mentored her during her residency at Johns Hopkins.”

“I learned as much from her as she did from me.”

“She also showed me your paper, ‘Evolutionary’- uh, ‘Evolutionary Origins of Social Exclusion’?” Jack unsurely asked as Huesyth came to stand in front of him.

“Yes,” Huesyth confirmed.

“Very interesting,” Jack added. “Very interesting… even for a layman.”

Huesyth cocked his head to the side slightly. “So many learned fellows going about in the halls of the Behavioral Science at the FBI, and you consider yourself layman.”

“I do when I’m in your company, Dr. Cavalli. Um, I need you to help me with a psychological profile.”

**F.B.I. ACADEMY, QUANTICO, VIRGINIA**

“Tell me, then, how many confessions?” Huesyth asked as his eyes scanned the wall of information pertaining to the girls that had been disappearing.

“Twelve dozen, last time I checked. None of them had any details,” Jack explained and returned to his desk. “Until this morning then they all had details.”

Huesyth could feel the other pair of eyes in the room on his back but as he turned around to face the other two men, Bec Reyes’ brown eyes were averted from him behind the frames of his glasses, staring off somewhere behind Jack’s shoulder as the agent prattled on. The younger man was a bit disheveled, dark chocolate brown hair left wild in a slightly overgrown undercut shape with unruly, long curls that spilled over onto one side of his face. The worn button-up shirt he was wearing was wrinkled heavily in some places and the circles under the man’s large doe-like but sharp eyes seemed far too dark. His face was round, almost baby-faced with a dusting of stubble across his jaw. Attractive still, no doubt, but could use some pampering.

“Some genius in Duluth P.D. took a photograph of Elise Nichols’ body with his cellphone, shared it with his friends and then Freddie Lounds posted it on Tattlecrime.com.”

“Tasteless,” Bec mumbled darkly, almost under his breath.

“Do you have trouble with taste?” Huesyth asked, trying to keep his questions friendly enough to not immediately seem to be too personal.

The profiler paused before sneering. “My thoughts are often not _tasty_.”

“Nor mine,” Huesyth agreed as he checked over one of the missing person reports pinned to the wall. “No effective barriers.”

Bec sighed softly as he sipped from a mug in front of him. “I build forts.”

Finally, Huesyth walked away from the wall, circling around to sit in the other chair next to Bec’s. “Associations come quickly.”

“So do forts,” Bec grumbled, setting the mug back down on Jack’s desk.

Huesyth raised a slight eyebrow at the man staring dead ahead. “Not fond of eye contact, are you?”

Bec huffed out a frustrated sigh, still not bothering to really look Huesyth’s way. “Eyes are distracting. See too much, you don’t see enough…” He cut himself off and finally turned to scan over Huesyth’s face briefly. “A-and it’s hard to focus when you’re thinking um, ‘oh, those whites are _really_ white,’ or, ‘he must have hepatitis,’ or, ‘oh, is that a burst vein?’.”

Huesyth smiled, letting out a breathy laugh through his nose at the other man’s descriptions of his abilities. He was certainly an interesting case, unique to any other Huesyth had tackled.

“So, yeah, I try to avoid eyes whenever possible,” Bec looked away again. “Jack?”

“Yes?” Jack said as he returned to his spot behind his desk after fixing certain details about his victim wall.

“I imagine what you see and learn touches everything else in your mind,” Huesyth explained, gaining the profiler’s attention again. “Your values and decency are present yet shocked at your associations, appalled at your dreams. No forts in the bone arena of your skull for the things you love.”

Minutely through Huesyth’s talking, Bec’s eyebrows drew together and his mouth was pressed into a thin line before he asked in a hushed tone. “Who’s profile are you working on?” The younger man looked up at Jack, repeating the question with more outrage. “Who’s profile is he working on!?”

“I’m sorry, Bec,” The doctor apologized. “Observing is what we do. I can’t shut mine off any more than you can shut yours off.”

“ _Please_ ,” Bec huffed. “Don’t psychoanalyze me. You won’t like me when I’m psychoanalyzed.”

“Bec-” Jack started but Bec cut him off, standing from his seat and making his way to the door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go give a lecture… on psychoanalyzing.”

He grabbed his jacket and stormed out of the room in a hurry, leaving the other two men alone in silence. Huesyth sat with his hands clasped before him in his lap as Jack began to speak again. “Maybe we shouldn't poke him like that, Doctor. Perhaps a less- uh, _direct_ approach.”

“What he has is pure empathy. He can assume your point of view, or mine, and maybe some other points of view that scare him. It’s an uncomfortable gift, Jack. Perceptions a tool that's pointed at both ends.” Huesyth looked back to the wall again, scanning over the faces to get a good idea of what he’d be hunting for later. “This cannibal you’re having him get to know… I think I can help good Bec see his face.”

 

**HIBBING, MINNESOTA**

Crows cawed loudly as they picked at the flesh that was revealed from the horns pierced through the woman’s body. She was splayed out, naked and on display to the world out in the middle of a field in almost a mocking manner, the points of the antlers on the deer head stuck through her flesh and dark, dried blood dribbled from the wounds.

Working quickly, Brian rushed over and swept his arms over the corpse to shoo away the pesky birds before they could devour any more pieces of the body. Bec stared wide-eyed at the body a few steps away with some kind of terrible combination of confusion and slight nausea. Nothing about the setup felt right and it made his skin crawl.

“Stag head was reported stolen last night about a mile from here,” Jack said, coming up to stand by the empath.

“Just the head?” Bec asked.

“Minneapolis Homicide’s already made a statement. They’re calling him the ‘Minnesota Shrike’.”

“Like the bird?” Bec questioned as he drew closer.

Jimmy stood from his crouching position beside the body, turning to Bec. “Shrike’s a perching bird. Impales mice and lizards on thorny branches and barbed wire. Rips their organs right out of their bodies, puts them in a little birdy pantry, and eats them later.”

Beverly gave Jimmy a judging look at the upbeat tone he used to describe the gore as Jack continued. “Can’t tell whether it’s sloppy or shrewd.”

“He wanted her found this way,” Bec proclaimed, taking steps forward without taking his eyes off the poor woman. “T-This is petulant. Almost feel like he’s _mocking_ her… or he’s mocking us.”

Jack leaned over the scene as Bec moved for a clearer look, his face was almost saddened and empathetic towards her. “Where did all his love go?”

“Whoever tucked Elise Nichols into bed didn’t paint this picture,” Bec revealed in a mumble.

“The killer took her lungs,” Brian added. The incision down her abdomen was enough of a clue that something was removed. “I… I’m pretty sure she was alive when he cut them out.”

Bec sighed softly. “Our cannibal _loves_ women. He doesn’t want to destroy them. He wants to _consume_ them, to keep some part of them inside. This girl’s killer thought that she was a pig.”

Bec marched away, not even needing his empathy to help explain that the crimes had far too many differences to even remotely be by the same man.

“You think this was a copycat?” Jack asked him before he could get too far.

Bec whipped back around as pieces finally fell into place in his brain and soon, words began pouring from his mouth before he could stop them. “The cannibal that killed Elise Nichols had a place to do it and had no interest in… in field kabuki. So, he has a house, or two or- uh, a cabin something with an antler room. He has a daughter. The same age as the other girls. Same hair color, same eye color, same height, same weight. She’s an only child. She’s leaving home… He can’t _stand_ the thought of losing her… she’s his golden ticket.”

Bec turned again, trying to escape the area when Jack called to him again. “What about the copycat?”

“You know, an intelligent psychopath… particularly a sadist is very hard to catch. No traceable motive, there’ll be no patterns. He may never kill this way again. Have Dr. Cavalli draw up a psychological profile. You seemed very impressed with his opinion.”

Finally, he was allowed to step away, marching through the knee-high grass to escape back to his car.

 

**DULUTH, MINNESOTA**

The motel room was musty and bland which did nothing to sooth the stress-filled headache creeping up from his spine to the top of his head. His home wasn’t extravagant either and if you ask any outside source, Bec was sure they’d call it bland as well but at least it was familiar and didn’t smell like watered down bleach, carpet cleaner, and mold. The water pressure of the shower certainly left much to be desired but at least the water was hot. Hot enough to hopefully boil the aches out of his body and the bloody, gory thoughts cluttering his brain.

He ran a heavy hand down his face as he scrubbed at his skin, but he was unaware of the coiling snake, black as pitch, slithering calmly around the room outside the bathroom door as if waiting for him to return.

 

Heavy knocks stirred him from his light, nightmare-filled slumber. Bec expected it to be Jack, ready to pick him up and take him around for a day of going through the suspect leads. Upon opening the door though, he was greeted instead by not only the bright morning sun but also the statuesque form of Doctor Cavalli.

“Good morning, Bec,” The doctor greeted. Bec only allowed himself to seem surprised for a quick second despite the fact he knew the doctor could probably tell.

Despite his anxiousness at social interaction, Bec wasn’t easily intimidated by other people because people were easy to understand. If anything people were usually more intimidated by him, but something about Huesyth made him feel like he didn’t belong in his own skin. Like he was some unearthly beast inhabiting a human skin suit and the itching feeling in his blood was just his real self telling him that this was _wrong_. He shouldn’t have to bend to anyone. Bec couldn’t seem to place what about Huesyth made him feel like that though. He seemed like a normal man, not too much older than Bec himself, with almost warm, greenish hazel eyes and a shaved head despite the fact that it seemed he’d have a full head of hair.

He stood about half a head taller than Bec and seemed to only know how to dress sharply in pressed, angular suits. His tastes were far more extravagant than Bec could ever imagine for himself.

“May I come in?” Huesyth asked.

Bec shook out of his sleepy daze and scanned over the parking lot behind the taller man. “Where’s Crawford?”

“Deposed in court. The adventure will be yours and mine today.” Huesyth explained, voice thick with an Italian accent. The taller man looked past Bec before meeting eyes with him again. “May I come in?”

Bec sighed softly through his nose, doing a quick once-over of the man before moving back into the motel room, a silent invitation for the doctor to follow. Huesyth did follow as well as shut the flimsy doors behind him. They sat at the tiny table that the motel provided and Huesyth began pulling tupperware containers, cutlery, and small dishes from the bag he brought.

“I’m very careful about what I put into my body, which means I end preparing most meals myself,” He brandished one of the containers, popping it open and revealing a mix of scrambled eggs, meat, and vegetables.

“A little protein scramble to start the day. Some eggs, some sausage,” He handed the container over to Bec who sat across from him.

Bec picked at pieces in the dish with his fork, stuffing a few in his mouth and mumbling, “Mmm, that is delicious. Thank you,” before dumping the formerly pretty display out onto the given plate.

Huesyth prepared his own container. “My pleasure. I would apologize for my analytical ambush but I know I will soon be apologizing again and you will tire of that eventually, so… I have to consider using apologies rarely.”

“Just keep it professional,” Bec snapped despite stuffing his face with the food Huesyth graciously brought him. Though, the kind gesture didn’t allow the doctor to weasel his way into Bec’s life to add his personal psychiatric opinions when they weren’t needed. Bec didn’t need the constant reminding about how different his brain functioned.

“Or we could socialize, like adults,” Huesyth recommended, taking a bite of his own food. “God forbid we become friendly.”

“I don’t find you that interesting,” Bec quipped as he took a sip from the cheap coffee the motel provided. He realized after the fact that that was probably very rude to say but Bec wasn’t in the mood for making friends.

“You will,” Huesyth simply clarified before taking another bite. The sureness of the statement should’ve made Bec do a double take but the empath let it slide when the doctor began speaking again. “Agent Crawford tells me you have a knack for the monsters.”

Bec stared across the table at the other man before breathing loudly out of his nose, scooting his plate out from in front of him and laying his elbows on the table in their place. “I don’t think the Shrike killed that girl in the field.”

Huesyth leaned forward as well. “The devil is in the details. What didn’t the copycat do to the girl in the field? What gave it away?”

“ _Everything_. It’s like he had to show me a negative so that I could see the positive-” Bec sighed, running his hands down his face. “That crime scene was practically gift wrapped.”

“The mathematics of human behavior. All those ugly variables. Some bad math with this Shrike fellow, huh? Are you reconstructing his fantasies? What kind of problems does he have?”

Bec chuckled softly and dryly, sipping his coffee again. “He has a few.”

Huesyth turned his attention back down to his container before asking the next question. “Do you ever have any problems, Bec?”

Bec snorted softly. “No.”

“Of course you don't. You and I are just alike. Problem free. Nothing about us to feel horrible about. You know, Bec, I think Uncle Jack sees you as a fragile little teacup. The finest China, used for only special guests.”

Strangely, that managed to pull a laugh out of Bec, a hearty one that had him leaning back in his chair to recollect himself. A real smile spreading his lips for the first time since his sister’s last visit. Bec’s laugh made Huesyth smile as well, chuckling breathily through his nose at the genuine joy he brought out in the other man.

When Bec’s laugh ebbed off, he asked. “How do you see me?”

The question caused the doctor to pause, staring stoically at the other man’s face before answering as truthfully as he could. “The mongoose I want under the house when the snakes slither by.”

Bec furrowed his brows at the doctor because it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know Bec’s love for reptiles, specifically snakes. From what others have said about his uneasy and empty stare or his especially volatile visions of murders that weren’t his own, he would be considered the snake to be feared. But Huesyth looked at him as if he wasn’t a freak or a party trick. He was obviously curious, everyone usually was, but his curiosity seemed far more personal than medical. The look in his eyes, however, made Bec’s skin crawl and the beast inhabiting his blood _growl_.

“Finish your breakfast,” Huesyth added smoothly, returning his attention back to his own meal.

 

A lead from the latest death had led them to a construction site, driving through a muddy puddle as they pulled up to the office where the site workers’ records should’ve been held. Bec put the car in park as he looked over at the doctor in the passenger seat next to him.

“What are you smiling at?” Bec asked.

Huesyth responded. “Peeking behind the curtain. I am just curious about how the FBI goes about its business when it’s not kicking in doors.”

Bec huffed a chuckle. “You’re lucky we’re not doing house-to-house interviews. We found a little piece of metal in Elise Nichols clothes. It’s a shred from a pipe threader.”

“There must be hundreds of construction sites all over Minnesota.”

“A certain kind of metal, certain kind of pipe, certain kind of pipe coating, so we’re checking all the construction sights that use that kind of pipe.”

“What are we looking for?” Huesyth asked.

“At this stage, anything really but mostly anything peculiar,” Bec swiped up the keys and exited the car.

 

“Two fellas from the FBI,” The secretary explained to someone on the phone. Probably the owner of the construction site. Bec flipped quickly through files, only scanning for anything that stuck out at him while Huesyth was thumbing through one of the file boxes behind him. “They goin’ through the drawers now. Mm-hmm. Puttin’ papers in file boxes. Yes, they are takin’ things. No. Well, they didn’t say– Yes, they can. What did you say your names were?”

Bec scanned through the file in his hands and was about to drop it into the rest of the batch before something caught his eye. “‘Garret Jacob Hobbs’?”

“He’s one of our pipe threaders. Those are all the resignation letters. Plumbers’ Union requires ’em whenever members finish a job,” The secretary turned back to the phone and whispered harshly into the speaker. “I’ll call you back.”

“Uh, does Mr. Hobbs have a daughter?” Bec asked.

“Might have,” She agreed vaguely.

“Eighteen or nineteen, wind-chafed, uh, plain but pretty. She’d have auburn hair, about this tall.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t keep company with these people,” The woman shrugged.

Huesyth came up from behind him to ask. “What is it about Garret Jacob Hobbs you find so peculiar?”

“He left a phone number, no address,” Bec told, allowing the doctor to peek over his shoulder to scan over the page as well.

“And therefore he has something to hide?”

Bec sighed, hating to have to explain himself. “The others all left addresses. They also don’t miss work for days at a time. Do you have an address for Mr. Hobbs?”

The woman’s shoulders dropped and she begrudgingly turned back to the desk to check the records there.

Later, Bec and the secretary began packing the boxes of files into the trunk of Bec’s car. As he passed one of the boxes down to the secretary, however, Huesyth let files slide off of the top and scatter across the dirt ground. Bec, ever the gentleman despite not knowing it, offered to pick them up as Huesyth let the secretary take the box. The doctor slipped silently back into the office, slipping a tissue out of the box to grab the phone and punch in a number with his knuckle. The phone only rang twice before a younger girl’s voice came through the line.

“ _Hello?_ ”

“I’m looking for Mr. Hobbs, please.”

“ _Just a second. Dad! It’s for you!_ ”

A moment passed in silence and then an older man’s voice answered. “ _Hello?_ ”

“Mr. Garret Jacob Hobbs?”

“ _Yeah,_ ” He answered quizzically.

“You don’t know me and I suspect we’ll never meet. This is a courtesy call. Listen very carefully. Are you listening?”

“ _Yes._ ”

Huesyth peered out the window for a moment before going back to the desk. “They know.”

He only listened to the man’s sudden spike in breath for a second before dropping the phone back into the receiver.

 

**BLOOMINGTON, MINNESOTA**

**RESIDENCE OF SUSPECT: GARRET JACOB HOBBS**

Despite what was probably better for his health, Bec pops more aspirin tablets into his mouth as his head pulsed slightly. He recognized that he’d been ignoring Huesyth for most of the ride over but he found himself more mentally preparing to face a potential murderer than chit-chatting with the psychiatrist. He exited the car without a word and pretended he didn’t see Huesyth just watching him from the passenger seat before he too slowly worked his way out of the car to follow behind the younger man. The empath approached the house up the driveway, paying more attention to the near silence of the woods surrounding the home until the front door was forced open and a bleeding, screaming woman was thrown out onto the concrete of the front porch before the door was slammed shut again.

Bec rushed to the woman’s aid as she grasped uselessly at the deep gash cut into the tender flesh of her neck, gushing blood over the front of her outfit and onto the concrete of the porch. The younger man scrambled to stop the bleeding but looked back to the door that had been slammed in his face, the daughter was still in there. He tried to keep his hands in place as the woman grabbed at his arms but soon she went limp, the color drained from her face. With his hands and forearms slick with blood, Bec scrambled to his feet again, drawing his gun and kicking in the door. He panned unsteadily over the room as he entered with his gun.

“Garret Jacob Hobbs! FBI!” Bec shouted, making his way into the kitchen where the man was holding a knife against a young woman’s throat. She screamed and whimpered in Hobbs’ grasp and Bec steadied his gun on him as best as he could.

Hobbs, without thought, sliced across his daughter’s throat at the same time Bec fired a shot into his shoulder. He was still standing, holding the knife over his head as if he was going to stab at his daughter who was now laid out on the ground. Bec fired the rest of his clip into the man's torso until the knife slipped from his grasp and he fell back against the kitchen cabinets with a crash.

Letting his gun fall out of his grip, Bec ran over to the girl on the ground, trying to hold his hands over the wound gushing blood out of the left side of her neck but he was shaking out of his skin. His unsteady hands were already slick with others’ blood and he couldn’t take a complete breath before his lungs felt like they were on fire. He whispered ‘no’ over and over again to himself as he saw just how futile his attempts at stopping the bleeding were.

“See?” A quiet voice hissed. Bec turned to the direction of the voice and saw Hobbs still bleeding out against the cabinets and staring through Bec’s soul as he spoke but now with a tar black snake coiled tightly around his neck in a dangerous fashion.

“ **See?** ” The snake seemed to repeat after the dying man even without having to move its mouth.

Hobbs went limp, almost as if the snake had squeezed the life out of him, but Bec’s attention was pulled back to the girl coughing under his hands.

He vaguely noticed as footsteps grew close before another set of hands, larger and far steadier than Bec’s own, came into view to pull Bec’s away and replace them with one of their own. It encircled the girl’s small neck and temporarily closed off the cut veins pumping blood out of it in heavy spurts while the other went to hold the back of her neck steady. With the responsibility of stopping the bleeding out of his control, Bec was able to pull in uneven breaths as he stared into Huesyth’s head, the doctor keeping his focus on the bleeding girl under his hands.

The FBI and EMTs rushed to the address as quickly as they could, wheeling the daughter out in a gurney, no large veins seemed to have been cut and she had thick gauze wrapped around her neck to keep the bleeding to a minimum as they transported her. The first responders had already asked their questions and left Bec to his own devices as they cleared the scene.

The empath was leaning against his car, the two women’s blood staining him up to his elbows and also spattered across his face, glasses, and shirt. It was beginning to dry and flake off his skin but a red hue seemed to linger. But a droplet of his own blood had fallen out of his nose and ran in a single red line over his mouth and chin, it had been there a while as it had dried at the edges and wasn’t smeared from Bec wiping it away. He couldn’t lift his own arms though even if he wanted to wipe it off because of the sudden decrease in adrenaline leaving him drained.

Someone moved in front of him, the same hands from before came into view to pour water from a bottle onto a rag that seemed to have been swiped from the ambulance as Huesyth left it.

“May I touch your face, Bec?” The man asked.

Bec didn’t trust his own voice, his throat was too tight to form words, so he nodded numbly instead. Huesyth carefully slipped the glasses off of his face, folding them up and placing them on the car’s roof along with the bottle of water. Gently, he began washing away the blood that was spattered across Bec’s face. The empath allowed his head to be moved loosely whichever way Huesyth’s other hand positioned him. His movements were slow and gentle, almost as if he was cleaning a wild animal that had spent its life being beaten, but they were soothing and the feeling of the blood coming off Bec’s tan skin was heavenly.

“Did he hurt you?” Huesyth asked as he held Bec’s chin up with his thumb and index finger, scanning over the younger man’s face for any other injuries he might’ve missed.

Bec understood he must’ve been talking about the bloody nose and shook his head slightly, swallowing heavily. “No, no… That happens sometimes.”

Huesyth hummed, seemingly wanting to ask more questions but was content with the answer, and ran the damp cloth over the drying stream of blood as well. When his face was clean enough, Bec released a breath he’d been holding and let his head hang down loosely, Huesyth pouring more water onto the cloth before turning his attention to Bec’s arms. The younger man’s brain was beginning to slow down from its constant thrumming of thoughts and the situation was setting in. Dr. Cavalli was cleaning him, being kind to him despite the fact that Bec had been nothing but snappy and rude to him since they met. It was a strange feeling… being taken care of despite everything.

The doctor ran the wet cloth down the length of Bec’s right forearm, revealing two noticeable scars running parallel in jagged, uneven lines across his lower wrist. His body was covered in light, small scars but those were a couple of the bigger ones. It made him flinch, try to pull his arm back out of Huesyth’s grasp.

“I-It’s okay. You don’t have t-” Bec tried to explain away, his voice still shaky.

Huesyth’s grip tightened, only minutely and not painfully, and shushed the younger man, speaking softly. “It’s fine. You’re okay. Let me help you.”

 

The daughter’s surgery was successful but from what he’d been told, she was comatose for an unforeseeable amount of time due to the loss of blood to her brain. He’d cleaned the rest of the blood away more thoroughly when he arrived at his motel but could still feel it as if it remained caked under his nails. Despite what his brain and Jack Crawford was telling him, Bec went to check on the daughter, Abigail, in her hospital room days later. Finding his way through the halls, checking in each of the open doors of the rooms that all looked the same until finding the number he was told was hers.

Once he entered, he saw her laid out motionless on the bed, tubes running in and out of her through her arms and mouth and a blanket tucked up to her stomach for some form of comfort. But as he continued entering, he found another person sitting in the chair directly right of her bed. Huesyth, sleeping soundly with a hand resting openly in Abigail’s like a tether to the world. Bec said nothing instead walking across and sitting silently down in one of the chairs on the left side of the bed. Breathing in softly, he allowed himself to relax back into the chair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NBC's Hannibal, nor its script and characters, and I don't make any money off of this fic. I rewrote it for me and a friend of mine purely for fun as a way to explore the events but with our original characters and just decided to start posting it.
> 
> New chapter every Wednesday!!


	2. “Amuse-Bouche”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #earlyupload lov u guys

_Bullet casings fell, hitting the concrete ground with sharp clinks but their sound was muffled by the resounding gunshots and protective earmuffs Bec had on. His shots missed all of the vital areas on the practice target ahead of him. An unmoving, unbreathing target and yet he missed every vital point._

_He emptied the clip and pressed the button to bring the target to him so that he could switch it out with a new one. Bec looked up again and saw Garret Jacob Hobbs, bloody, pale, eyes empty and milky, moving towards him quickly in place of the paper target. Bec scrambled to shove a new clip into the gun before also emptying it into the corpse. It stared blankly as it grew closer; unmoving, unblinking, not bleeding._

**CHIPPEWA NATIONAL FOREST, MINNESOTA**

**GARRET JACOB HOBBS’ CABIN**

Heavy knocks on the window next to his head rustled him suddenly from the anxiety-inducing daydream. Jack leaned down until he was nearer to Bec’s head and said through the glass of the car door. “We’re here!”

The older agent gave him a tight smile as he shook himself awake, dabbing at the blood threatening to run from his nose because of the dream. He really needed to get that checked at some point and he knew the aspirins probably didn’t help the blood flow. Bec removed his seatbelt before all but stumbling out of the car to follow behind Jack towards the entrance to the old log cabin. Forensic teams and officers were scattered about outside in the cabin’s overgrown lawn, taking samples and photos and guarding the perimeter. Bec was given a flashlight as Jack yanked off the crime scene tape covering the door and moved inside the dark room.

The cabin was rustic and littered with animal parts in various states of decay or in the process of being stuffed and mounted. The air was thick with the smell of not only the mustiness of old wood but also the chemicals used in the treatments of the animals’ body parts. Upstairs, the loft is splattered with racks of deer antlers, almost from the floor to the ceiling on all sides of the room.

 _Everywhere you turned could’ve gotten you cut on an antler_ , Bec thought as he scanned over the darkened room with his flashlight.

“Could be a permanent installation in your Evil Minds Museum,” Bec commented to Jack.

“Well, what we learn about Garret Jacob Hobbs will help us catch the next one like him. There are still seven bodies unaccounted for,”

“Yeah, well, he _was_ eating them,” Bec mumbled almost matter-of-factly.

Jack shrugged. “Had to be some parts he wasn’t eating.”

The younger man paused before shaking his head slightly. “Not necessarily.”

“All right, what if Hobbs wasn’t eating alone?” Jack offered. “It’s a lot of work. Disappearing these girls, butchering them, and then not leaving a shred of anything other than what’s in this room.”

“Someone he hunted with?”

“Someone who is in a coma, who also happened to be someone he hunted with.”

Bec blinked a few times, staring at a rack of antlers that were stained with blood on the tips as Jack let his flashlight beam pass over him. “Abigail Hobbs is a suspect?”

“We’ve been conducting house-to-house interviews at the Hobbs residence, and, uh, at this property also. Hobbs spent a lot of time here. Spent a lot of time with his daughter here. She would make the ideal bait, wouldn’t she?”

Bec squatted down as he listened to the theory to look over the patterns of footprints in the dust on the floor. He didn’t believe any of it. “Hobbs killed alone.”

Jack, however, didn’t look convinced of that even after knowing the damage her father inflicted on her. Bec turned his attention back to the floor before spotting something peculiar tucked under the leg of a table. He reached down with one of his gloved hands and plucked up a long and curly red hair from the ground.

“…someone else was here.”

 

**FBI ACADEMY, QUANTICO, VIRGINIA**

With a heavy sigh, Bec slipped his glasses, cleaned of blood, back onto his face before he steadied himself to walk into the lecture hall. He was greeted by a standing ovation by his students which he felt really was uncalled for considering he murdered a man not too long ago.

“Thank you. Please stop that…” The applause quieted and the students sat back down in their seats as the lights dimmed, the projector whirring to life to display an image. “This is how I caught Garret Jacob Hobbs. It’s his resignation letter. Does anybody see the clue?”

Some students raised their hands but Bec ignored them. “There isn’t one. He wrote a letter, he left a phone number, no address. That’s it. Bad bookkeeping and dumb luck.”

The projector clicked again and Bec turned to it to see the body of Hobbs’ splayed out against his kitchen cabinets with blood leaking from him and suddenly Bec was there again in the Hobbs household, desperately trying to keep Abigail from bleeding out on her kitchen floor as her father dies beside them.

“Garret Jacob Hobbs is dead. The question now is how to stop those his story is going to inspire. He’s already got one admirer. A copycat.”

The class passed without any more incidences of Bec’s mind slipping but upon the students leaving, he found another figure approach his desk through the crowd. A fair-skinned woman with long dark brown hair hanging in loose curls over her shoulders. Dr. Alana Bloom, a guest lecturer at the Academy.

“Hi,” Bec greeted.

Alana smiled, blue eyes glittering with joy. “How are you, Bec?”

Bec slid his files back into his bag before turning to the woman again and shrugging. “Uh, I have no idea.”

“Um, I didn’t want you to be ambushed,” Alana explained.

“This is an ambush?” Bec asked.

Alana eyes flicked to the side and back to Bec with a tighter smile. “Ambush is later. Immediately later... soon to now. When Jack arrives, consider yourself ambushed-”

Raising a questioning eyebrow at the woman, Bec could see Jack approaching from the center entrance from the middle of Alana’s sentence. “Here’s Jack.”

Bec took up his bag and went around to behind his desk as Jack came to a stop beside Alana and asked. “How was class?”

“Um, they applauded. It was inappropriate,” The younger man described as he continued packing his things.

“Well, the review board would beg to differ. You’re up for a commendation. And they’ve, uh, okayed active return to the field-” “The question is, do you want to go back to the field?” Alana cut in.

“I want him back in the field,” Jack interjected firmly back to Alana. “And I’ve told the board I’m recommending a psych eval.”

Bec looked between the two as they talked about him in front of him with little to no regard for him. He looked questioningly to Alana. “Are we starting now?”

“Oh, the session wouldn’t be with me,” Alana confirmed.

Jack added to clear things up. “Huesyth Cavalli’s a better fit. Your relationship isn't personal. But if you are more comfortable with Dr. Bloom-”

The empath cut in. “No, I’m not going to be comfortable with anybody inside my head.”

Alana took a deep breath. “You’ve never killed anyone before, Bec. It’s a deadly force encounter. It’s a lot to digest.”

“I used to work Homicide,” Bec reminded the two.

“The reason you currently _used_ to work Homicide is because you didn’t have the stomach for pulling the trigger,” Jack stated as Bec rounded his desk to move towards the exit. “You just pulled the trigger _ten times!_ ”

“Wait, so a psych eval isn’t a formality?” Bec questioned.

“No, it’s so I can get some sleep at night. I asked you to get close to the Hobbs thing. I need to know you didn’t get too close. How many nights did you spend in Abigail Hobbs’ hospital room, Bec?”

The younger man worked his jaw in a way to keep him from grinding his teeth together in frustration. “Therapy doesn’t work on me.”

Jack gave an exasperated sigh to Alana before walking over to stand closer to Bec. “Therapy doesn’t work on you because you won’t let it.”

“And because I know all the tricks. Trust me, I went to enough therapists when I was younger to learn a few things.”

“Well, perhaps you need to unlearn some tricks,” Jack added and Bec squinted at him from behind the frames of his glasses.

“Why not have a conversation with Huesyth?” Alana offered. “He was there. He knows what you went through.”

The empath was growing tired of the constant arguing, a sharp pain was beginning to bloom behind his eyes as he slipped his glasses off his face and turned away from the two to stalk out of the room without another word.

“Come on, Bec. I need my beauty sleep!”

 

Relenting to Jack’s wants was not something Bec thought he was going to do. He was sure that the death of Hobbs would be his first and last case for the FBI before they shoved him aside so that he could return to his mundane life. Obviously, his mental instability was prevalent, Alana and probably even Huesyth could see it. Maybe even Jack if he allowed himself too.

But then Bec found himself cruising the elevated, mezzanine level of Huesyth’s office, scanning over the near floor to ceiling bookshelves. He noticed most of the books were written in either Italian or French. Bec knew enough Italian from his father to even recognize some of the works among the shelves.

The doctor himself remained on the bottom level as he removed a paper from one of his files at his desk. Bec raised a questioning eyebrow down at the other man as he approached under Bec’s location with the paper in hand. “What’s that?”

“Your psychological evaluation,” Huesyth explained. “You are totally functional and more or less sane. Well done.”

“Did you just rubber stamp me?”

“Yes,” Huesyth laid the paper down gently on a side table next to one of the chairs scattered about the room. “Jack Crawford may lay his weary head to rest knowing he didn’t break you and our conversation can proceed unobstructed by paperwork.”

The younger man walked along the length of the bookshelves with his hands shoved in his pockets, Huesyth following his movements with his head. “Jack thinks that I need therapy,” He proclaimed before mumbling softly. “I don’t think that’ll help the nightmares though.”

“What you need is a way out of dark places when Jack sends you there.”

“Last time he sent me into a dark place, I brought something back,” Bec snapped down at him, the anger at his situation leaking through his words.

“A surrogate daughter?” Huesyth moved to stand behind his desk again. “You saved Abigail Hobbs’ life. You also orphaned her. That comes with certain emotional obligations, regardless of empathy disorders.”

“You were there. You saved her life too. Do you feel obligated?” The empath asked down at the other man. He didn’t expect a genuine answer or even an admission of guilt from the doctor and was prepared to let them both stay in the dark about it.

“Yes,” Huesyth said, looking up at the younger man. “I feel a staggering amount of obligation. I feel responsibility. I’ve fantasized about scenarios where my actions may have allowed a different fate for Abigail Hobbs.”

Bec nodded in understanding but looked away from the doctor as he realized their feelings were more alike than he cared to go into. “Jack thinks Abigail Hobbs helped her dad kill those girls.”

Huesyth seemed to fall deathly silent, keeping his gaze locked on Bec before speaking evenly. “How does that make you feel?”

In an unthought out display of childishness, Bec scoffed softly before repeating back to the doctor. “How does it make _you_ feel?”

“I find it vulgar,” Huesyth replied, unaffected by Bec’s comment.

“Me too.”

“And entirely possible.”

“It’s not what happened,” Bec defended and found himself at the end of the length of bookshelves with nowhere else to pace to in frustration.

“Jack will ask her when she wakes up, or he’ll have one of us ask her.”

“Is this therapy, or a support group?”

“It’s whatever you need it to be. And, Bec,” Huesyth continued, drawing the empath’s attention back to him. “The mirrors in your mind can reflect the best of yourself, not the worst of someone else.”

 

Bullet casings fell, hitting the concrete ground with sharp clinks but their sound was muffled by the resounding gunshots and protective earmuffs Bec had on. His shots missed all of the vital areas on the practice target ahead of him. An unmoving, unbreathing target and yet he missed every vital point. The set up seeming all too familiar to him. Familiar enough to send a shiver down his spine.

He pulled the muffs off his ears in frustration when the clip was empty, releasing an exasperated sigh through his nose.

“I’m pretty sure firearm accuracy isn’t a prerequisite for teaching,” A woman’s voice spoke up. Not surprised by the new voice, Bec only had to turn briefly for him to recognize Beverly standing behind him with her arms crossed over chest and with the same protective gear on that he had.

“Well, I’ve been in the field before,” Bec explained, pressing the button and drawing the target to him. It seems he’d been having to remind everyone that he isn’t as helpless as they’d assume.

“Now you’re back in the saddle. Ish,” Beverly guessed.

The younger man pulled down the used target from the clips hanging it on the moveable track. “Ish indeed. Took me ten shots to drop Hobbs.”

“Zeller wanted to give you the bullets he pulled out of Hobbs in an acrylic case, but I told him you wouldn’t think it was funny.”

Bec clipped the new target into place and retreated back behind the shooting range as it moved into place down the range. “Probably not.”

“I suggested one of those clackin’ swingin’ ball things,” Beverly quipped, smiling up at the empath when he turned to raise an eyebrow at her.

“That would’ve been funny.”

Bec pulled his earmuffs back on and allowed time for Beverly to do the same before he brought his gun up again, shooting a bullet into the lower section of the target.

“You’re a Weaver,” Beverly mentioned. “I took you for an isosceles guy.”

“I have a rotator cuff issue so I have to use the Weaver stance.”

Beverly stepped forward and put a hand on Bec’s right shoulder, feeling the tightened muscles like they were about to snap. “You _are_ tight.”

“I got stabbed when I was a cop.”

Beverly came to stand beside Bec. “Yeah, I got stabbed in the third grade with a number two pencil. Thought I was gonna get lead poisoning.”

She maneuvered his body into a different position, raising his arms and placing his feet in a different stance as he continued blabbering. “Uh, no lead in pencils; It’s graphite.”

“See if that helps with the recoil,” Beverly said, taking a step back again.

The empath took a deep breath, aimed, and shot into the target again. The shots hit higher and far closer to the center of the target but were still far more scattered than he’d like them to be. It seemed like progress. He pulled the earmuffs off and brought the target to him again to check the placement of the shots.

“Better,” He inferred before bringing his attention back to the woman behind him. “You come all the way down here to teach me how to shoot?”

“No. Jack sent me down here to find out what you know about gardening.”   


**ELK NECK STATE FOREST, MARYLAND**

Light bled heavily through the trees above them and made organic shapes of shadows dance across the green earth they were marching through to get to the crime scene.

“So, Cavalli gave you the all-clear,” Jack reminded as they walked together. “Therapy might work on you after all.”

“Therapy is an acquired taste which I have yet to acquire. But, uh, it served your purpose. I’m back in the field.”

Jack lifted the yellow crime scene tape above their heads to allow them to enter as Bec moved ahead of him a few steps. The empath could tell Jack was giving a look to the back of his head while they moved but he kept whatever comment that was boiling inside him to himself. “Local police found tire tracks on a hidden service road and some small animal traps in the surrounding area.”

The bodies were lined up in a row of shallow graves among the forest floor, in varying states of rotting from oldest to newest but all had huge clumps of mushrooms and algae growing out of them. IV tubes running out of their decomposing arms.

“He wanted to keep his crop undisturbed,” Bec stated as he stared down at the sight. Some of the bodies had already been moved out of their shallow holes and were placed on the body bags they would soon be zipped up in.

“The only thing missing is the scarecrow,” Jack guessed.

Jimmy stood from where he’d been crouched over one of the newer bodies, gently brushing the soil away. “Okay, we’ve got nine bodies, various stages of decay, and as you can see, all very well fertilized.”

“He buried them in a high-nutrient compost. He was enthusiastically encouraging decomposition,” Beverly stated as she climbed from the grave she was observing.

“They were buried alive with the intention of keeping them that way. I mean, for a little while,” Brian added.

“Long enough for the fungus to eat away any distinguishing characteristics,” Jimmy quipped as he stared at the destroyed faces of the corpses.

“Line and rebar were used to administer intravenous fluids after they were buried,” Brian explained as he motioned to the long tubes that lead from the bodies up a tree to hanging bags that were hooked up among the leaves. “He was feeding them something.”

“No restraints?” Bec asked as he scanned the open layout of the graves.

The scientists shrugged as Jimmy answered. “Just dirt.”

“The other end of the air-supply system comes up over there. It isn’t a very considerate clean air solution, which clearly wasn’t a priority, ’cause he isn’t lazy,” Beverly pointed out.

Bec shook his head gently. “No, he’s not.”

The scientists all looked to each other as Jack cleared his throat at them. They all got the picture and quickly gathered their supplies to evacuate the area, Beverly asking Brian if he had found any shitake mushrooms among the growths. To which he muttered a disappointed ‘no’ in return.

“Welcome back,” Jack said to the empath, turning to take his leave as well, leaving Bec mostly alone with the bodies.

He took in a deep breath, breathing in the smell of soil and fallen leaves as the pendulum swung behind his eyes. The bodies were placed back into their graves and recovered with a layer of topsoil, the mushrooms growing freely through the rich dirt on their bodies.

_The killer stands over the newest grave, freshly dug and body freshly placed inside it. He scoops up the healthy soil with a shovel and tosses it loosely over the body, keeping the body’s arm free and tied to the spike of rebar planted into the ground next to him._

“I do not bind his arms or legs as I bury him in a shallow grave. He’s alive. But he will never be conscious again.”

_The killer shoved a tube into the man’s mouth and taped over it to keep it in place._

“He won’t know that he’s dying. I don’t need him to. This is my design.”

_The killer looked down at his victim to admire his completed handiwork and saw Hobbs’ foggy eyed corpse staring back at him._

Abruptly, Bec was shaken from his imagination by the image now seared into his eyelids and found himself kneeling in the dirt beside the newer body. His breathing was heavy and he was about to stand when a bloodless hand shot out of the grave and tried to grab a hold of his wrist. He stumbled to his feet and out of the way as officers rushed over to the body that began moving and taking ragged breathes in its grave. The empath held onto a tree behind him to keep himself from following over because of his unsteady legs. He stumbled off as soon as he was able to get himself moving again, wiping off the blood leaking from his nose.

 

In tossing the signed paper back onto the doctor’s desk, Bec had realized that his perceptive mind was probably _not_ ready to go back into the field despite what everyone else wanted. A headache he’d gained from the shocking experience hours earlier was still throbbing behind his eyes.

“This may have been premature.”

As soon as Huesyth recognized the paper with his signature, he gave the empath an odd look and asked. “What did you see? Out in the field.”

Bec thought about lying and just saying he had a panic attack or something but he knew it was an excuse he probably couldn’t get away with. “Hobbs.”

“An association?”

“A hallucination,” Bec explained. “I saw him lying there in someone else’s grave.”

“Did you tell Jack what you saw?” Huesyth questioned.

Bec narrowed his eyes at the question and scoffed. “No.”

If Jack were to know that his favorite empath was seeing things under his watch then Bec would never hear the end of it.

“It’s stress. Not worth reporting. You displaced the victim of another killer’s crime with what could arguably be considered your victim.”

“I don’t consider Hobbs my victim,” Bec said unsurely.

Huesyth tipped his head to the side slightly. “What do you consider him?”

Bec sighed and shrugged. “Dead?”

“Is it harder imagining the thrill somebody else feels killing, now that you’ve done it yourself?”

The empath went quiet. He kept quite a space of distance between them as he mulled over the question before he simply nodded with a soft exhale through his nose. The doctor almost seemed disappointed by the answer but changed the line of questioning.

“The arms,” Huesyth started, walking around his desk to begin closing the distance between them. “Why did he leave them exposed? To hold their hands? To feel the life leaving their bodies?”

“No, that’s too esoteric for someone who took the time to bury his victims in a straight line. He’s more practical.”

“He was cultivating them,” Huesyth brought up as Bec went to sit back against his desk.

“He was keeping them alive. He was feeding them intravenously.”

“But your farmer let his crops die. Save for the one that didn’t.”

Bec stuttered slightly. “Well, and the one that didn’t died on the way to the hospital, though they weren’t crops; They were the fertilizer. The bodies were covered in fungus.”

Huesyth sighed and leaned down on his elbows against the back of his desk chair to be more level with Bec’s height. “The structure of a fungus mirrors that of the human brain. An intricate web of connections.”

“So maybe he admires their ability to connect the way human minds can’t.”

“Yours can,” Huesyth noted.

Bec laughed dryly which made Huesyth smile despite the topic of conversation, the doctor flashing his set of almost inhumanly pointed canines. “Um yeah, not _physically_.”

Suddenly, Huesyth stood up straight. “Is that what your farmer is looking for? Some sort of connection?”

Bec raised his eyebrows at him but didn’t disagree with the statement. It seemed to be the most plausible motive with a serial killer that seemed to have no rhyme or reason besides the fact that he wanted his own shroom garden.

“Ah, before I forget, Bec,” Huesyth began as he opened a drawer on his desk and pulling out a leather bound journal. “I remember you mentioning your nightmares in our previous session and I’d like to try something with you.”

He held the journal out to Bec, the empath looking perplexedly between the supple leather cover and Huesyth’s face. Hesitantly, he took the journal from the doctor’s hand and examined it thoroughly, even flipping through the pages to find them all empty and untouched.

“You want me to start a diary, Dr. Cavalli?” Bec wondered.

Huesyth gave a breathy laugh through his nose. “I’d like you to start recording your dreams or at least what you can remember of them. It will be easier to understand them if you have them in writing.”

The empath scoffed softly. “Is knowing what happens in my dreams really all that necessary?”

“The contents and symbolism in different dreams can represent different problems in your waking life. If we are able to recognize some of the symbols then we can work towards solutions. Aren’t solutions the whole reason you came here?”

Bec looked down at the journal again before he sighed to himself. “I’ll see if I’ll be able to remember to write in it.”

Huesyth smiled. “I’d appreciate it greatly.”

When his session came to an end, Huesyth escorted Bec out of the patients’ exit, wishing him good night before checking his watch and going back to the waiting room door. He opened it and a short, young woman with long and coiling red hair turned to him with a look of intrigue. She was dressed head to toe in a red ensemble that nearly matched her fiery hair.

“Miss Kimball?” He asked.

The woman smiled, her face almost fox-like in its hidden mischievousness, and replied. “Yes.”

“Good evening. Please come in,” Huesyth stepped aside and allowed her to enter.

She moved inside and like many people who had never seen his office before, she stared around at the large collection of bookshelves on the mezzanine level as he closed the door behind her.

“I’ve, uh, never seen a psychiatrist before,” She admitted, turning to face the doctor. There was something off about her, something familiar that Huesyth couldn’t seem to recognize right away.

“And I am unfortunately thorough, so you’re one of three doctors I’m interviewing. It’s more or less a bake-off.”

“I’m very supportive of bake-offs. It’s important you find someone you’re comfortable with.”

She nodded along in agreement with his words. “I can imagine you as my therapist, which is good. If I can’t visualize opening up emotionally, I know it would be a problem.”

“May I ask why now?” Huesyth inquired. The red-head was seemingly becoming far more familiar to him.

The woman gave a numb expression before sitting down in one of the chairs with a far more plastic smile etched across her face. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions first?”

“Of course not.”

“I love that you’ve written so much on social exclusion. Since that’s why I’m here, I was wondering-” “Are you Freddie Lounds?”

The fake smile broke finally, the deer in the headlights has finally been revealed as a fox in the henhouse. A rather lazy fox at that.

“This is unethical, even for a tabloid journalist,” Huesyth explained.

She looked down at her purse in her lap with something more akin to defeat than shame. Freddie stood from her seat, seemingly ready to leave while she was ahead. “I am, uh, I am so embarrassed.”

Huesyth nodded but stared down at the purse she was clutching onto in her pale hands. “I’m afraid I must ask for your bag.”

Freddie blinked, narrowing her eyes slightly as if she misheard him. “What?”

“Your bag,” The doctor repeated. “Please hand it over. I’d rather not take it from you.”

The woman slipped the purse strap off her shoulder before handing it over to him. He didn't have to search for very long for as soon as he opened the top of it, a handheld recorder was sitting at the top of the rest of the contents. Huesyth looked back up at the woman with a pensive stare.

She tried to explain herself, motioning to the purse. “I was recording our conversation.”

“ _Our_ conversation? Yours and mine?” Huesyth asked.

Freddie answered briefly. “Yes.”

“No other conversation?”

“No,” She retorted.

 _Liar_ , the doctor thought with resounding bitterness.

Huesyth clicked the purse closed again. “You were very persistent about your appointment time. How did you know when Bec Reyes would be here?”

Realizing how close she was to being backed into a corner, Freddie finally relented. “I may have also recorded your session with Bec Reyes.”

“You didn’t answer the question. How did you know?”

“I can’t answer that question,” She answered, just like any proverbial journalist trying to claw their way to the top of success would do.

Growing bored of the roundabout Freddie was putting him through, Huesyth turned and took a seat on the couch next to the door that led to the waiting room. “Come. Sit by me.”

He patted the spot next to him, beckoning her over like a disobedient child or pet, as he took the recorder out of her purse. Freddie gave in and begrudgingly joined the doctor on the couch, keeping a space between them as he dug the device out of her purse again.

He handed the recorder over to her as soon as she settled next to him. “Delete the conversations you recorded. Doctor-patient confidentiality works both ways. Delete it, please.”

She held it still in her hands for a brief moment without doing anything before she finally erased the files that she had recorded within the last few hours. She handed the device back to the doctor and he slipped it into her purse where it belonged, putting it to the side of him where Freddie wasn’t to keep it out of her reach.

Huesyth continued. “You’ve been terribly rude, Miss Lounds. What’s to be done about that?”

Shaken by the sudden mood change, she gave him a troubled look before he went on to explain to her that he would like to never see her around his office again. When he was sure he got his point across, he gave the woman back her purse and allowed her to scamper off into the shadows that she had crawled out of. Huesyth returned to his desk after she had left, taking his schedule out from one of the drawers so that he could begin shifting names around. To ensure something like this would never happen again in his office, he moved Bec’s appointments to be the last one of Huesyth’s work day. He’d have to be sure to call and tell him.

 

The doctor drizzled a healthy amount of the sauce over the delicately sliced meat he’d laid out on Jack’s plate along with the collection of steamed vegetables. “Loin served with a Cumberland sauce of red fruits.”

“Um, loin. What kind?” Jack asked as Huesyth rounded the dining room table, placing the saucière back onto its stand in the middle of the table.

“Pork,” Huesyth answered simply.

“Wonderful. I don’t get many opportunities to, uh, eat home-cooked meals. My wife and I both work, and, uh, as hard as I tried not to, I did wind up marrying my mother.”

Huesyth slipped his suit jacket back on as he made it to his own seat across from Jack’s and sat down. “Your mother didn’t cook?”

“She did, she did. I only wish she didn’t,” Jack explained as they began cutting into the meat on their plates. “There was this meal she used to prepare. She liked to call it ‘oriental noodles’. Spaghetti, soy sauce, bouillon cubes, and spam. I was very thin as a youngster.”

“Well, next time, bring your wife. I’d love to have you both for dinner.”

“Thank you,” Jack took his first bite of the meal and immediately seemed far more pleased. “Mmm. Lovely. So, why do you think Bec Reyes came back to see you?”

Huesyth paused slightly, thinking of an answer. “I’m sure he recognizes the necessity of his own support structure if he is to go on supporting you in the field.”

“Well, I believe that a guy like Bec Reyes knows exactly what’s going on inside of his head, which is why he doesn’t want anyone else up there,” Jack conceded while taking another bite.

“Are you not accustomed to broken ponies in your stable?” Huesyth asked, looking up at the other man.

“You think Bec Reyes is a broken pony?”

Huesyth raised an eyebrow at the agent. “I think you think Bec is a broken pony. Have you ever lost a pony, Jack?”

“If you’re asking me whether or not I’ve ever lost someone in the field, the answer is yes. Why?” Jack was gaining a defensive attitude to the line of questioning. One that not even Bec had with Huesyth during their first sessions.

“I want to understand why you’re so delicate with Bec. Because you don’t trust him, or because you’re afraid of losing another pony?”

Jack sighed. “I’ve already had my psych eval.”

Huesyth gave a thin smile. “Not by me. You’ve already told me about your mother. Why stop there?”

The doctor picked his wine glass up, holding it out to the other man and gaining a hearty laugh from the agent. Jack picked up his glass in return and they clinked them together in a sign of comradery across the table.

 

**B.A.U., QUANTICO, VIRGINIA**

The autopsy room always seemed to make Bec uneasy. Really everything made him uneasy but the bright, sterileness of the room and the smell of chemicals and corpses never sat well with anyone.

He stood before one of the nine bodies that they had brought in that Brian and Jimmy were working on and finally had to ask. “What were they soaked in?”

“A highly concentrated mixture of hardwoods, shredded newspaper, and pig poop perfect for growing mushrooms and other fungi,” Jimmy explained, cutting off Brian who nearly answered at the same time.

“It was not the mushrooms, though. They all died of kidney failure,” Brian pointed out.

As the men conversed, Beverly came in behind Bec to stand next to him in the doorway of the autopsy room. She brought with her important information. “Dextrose in all the catheters. He probably used some kind of dialysis or peristaltic to pump fluids after their circulatory systems broke down.”

“Force-feeding them sugar water?” Bec questioned.

Jimmy added in. “You know who loves sugar water? Mushrooms. They crave it.”

“Recovering alcoholics. They crave sugar,” Brian guessed before turning to Jimmy across the body. “Uh, don’t take that personally, buddy.”

“Oh, I’m not recovering,” Jimmy reminded.

Brian continued with his talk about the fungus. “Feed sugar to the fungus in your body, the fungus creates alcohol, so it’s like friends helping friends, really.”

“It’s not just alcoholics who have compromised endocrine systems,” Bec explained and the eyes in the room were back on him. “They all died of kidney failure? Death by diabetic ketoacidosis.”

“Did you know they were diabetics?” Beverly demanded to the two other scientists.

“We don’t know if they were diabetics,” Brian tried to defend as he searched through his reports on the bodies.

“No, they’re all diabetics. He induces a coma and puts them in the ground,” Bec expressed. The two men were staring at him like he might’ve grown a second head, Brian still thumbing through what they knew of the victims.

“How is he inducing diabetic comas?” Beverly asked.

“Changes their medication. So he’s a doctor or a pharmacist or he works somewhere in medical services.”

Sure of the profile they’d unraveled, Beverly pieced it together. “He buries them, feeds them sugar to keep them alive long enough for the circulatory systems to soak it up.”

“So he can feed the mushrooms!” Jimmy exclaimed.

“We dug up his mushroom garden,” Brian pointed out.

Bec sighed. “Yeah, he’s gonna want to grow a new one.”

 

The FBI SWAT team moved in a fast formation in front of them through the grocery store they’d found themselves in. Bec and Jack moved in through the back of the large building towards the pharmacy section.

“She’s the chain’s tenth diabetic customer to disappear after filling a prescription for insulin, second to disappear from this exact location,” Jack explained.

“And the other eight?” Bec inquired.

“All over the county. One pharmacist all over the county as well,” Jack said. They walked through the frozen foods aisle and the SWAT silently ushered the customers out of the way.

“Floater, huh?”

“Floater’s floating right here. Still logged in at his workstation.”

They rounded the corner and Jack shouted into the pharmacy station where several workers were still checked in. “Everyone please stop what you are doing. Put your hands in the air! Special Agent Jack Crawford. Which one of you is Eldon Stammets?”

The pharmacists’ hands shot into the air at the shouting but they all looked to each other in shocked confusion at the mention of Stammets. The pharmacist closest to the counter stammered out. “Eldon was just here. Just now.”

“Is his car still in the parking lot?” Bec asked.

The pharmacists looked at each other with worry again before Jack shouted. “His car!”

They were lead into the parking lot by the pharmacist and gestured to one of the cars sitting by itself. Seeing as it was locked, Bec turned to one of the SWAT members behind him and held out a hand. “Give me your baton.”

He was handed the baton and used it to smash in the driver side window, breaking out the glass before handing it back and reaching in to pop the trunk open.

The smell of fermented soil and body odor hit Bec in the face as he rounded the back of the car to find it filled with dirt. He reached in and uncovered the unconscious body of a woman with a ventilator mask strapped to her face.

“She’s alive!” He called to the SWAT.

Jack came up to his side, covering his face with his hand and coughing at the strong smells pouring out of the small space. “EMTs! Now!”

They pulled back when the medical professionals came to their aid, Bec shaking the dirt off of his hands as Jack turned to him. “All right. We know his name, we have his address, we have his car.”

“Jack,” Someone started, turning to see it was Jimmy. “We just checked the browser history at Stammets’ workstation.”

“Am I gonna wanna hear this?” Jack questioned.

“No. And yes, but mostly no.”

They returned to the store and saw Beverly typing at the pre-mentioned workstation with Brian in front of her. When Brian saw them approach he gave them a tight face and motioned to the computer. “Freddie Lounds. Tattlecrime.com.”

“‘The FBI isn’t just hunting psychopaths’,” Beverly began to read. “‘They’re headhunting them too, offering competitive pay and benefits in the hopes of using one demented mind-’”

Her voice trailed off near the end and Jack looked at her after her sudden stop, ushering. “Keep going.”

She gave the empath standing next to her a quick pitying look. “It’s about Bec,” She clarified.

“Go on,” Jack persisted.

“‘One demented mind to catch-’ She goes into a lot of detail.”

Jack hung his head low as he leaned against the counter before hitting his fist against the top. “Son of a _bitch_.”

 

It hadn’t been very long before he found himself scrolling through Tattlecrime.com to see if Freddie had found new material to use in her article or if she found herself going completely satire. When the website loaded and the first thing Huesyth saw were photos of Bec with the words ‘IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE’ typed in large letters above it, he realized just how much of a pest the ambitious fox is becoming.

“You are naughty, Miss Lounds.”

 

**BALTIMORE, MARYLAND**

He stared ahead in an almost statuesque fashion, not taking his eyes off the comatose form of Abigail Hobbs still bound to her hospital bed. The only sign of life in the room was the steady rise and fall of his chest with his breathing and the beeping of Abigail’s heart monitor.

“ **You took her,** ” A quiet voice hissed.

Something dark slithered past the open hospital room door out of the corner of Bec’s eye and when he turned to see what it was, the tail of a large, tar-black python moved out of sight as it made its way down the hallway.

“ ** _You_ ** **orphaned her.** ”

Rising from his sitting position on the couch, he moved into the hallway as well. He stared down into the dark end of the hall but could see the python moving off to the side to continue down another path. Its skin had an almost frosty purple hue to it when the light bounced off its scales and had flourishes of feathers of the same black color coming off from its neck in plumes and down the length of its spine to taper off near its middle.

“ **You are the very reason she has no one left.** ”

The lights down the hall and the one above him dimmed until he was left in total darkness.

“ **This is your weight to bare.** ”

He was pulled into consciousness by another voice in the room that wasn’t there before, gentle and quiet unlike that of the snake. A blanket was laid across him despite him remembering that he just passed out on the couch with his olive green jacket as a pillow without any care for his own warmth.

Bec looked up to see Alana sitting next to Abigail’s legs on her bed, reading from a book she had in her lap. “‘He and the Grandmother discussed better times.’, The old lady said that ‘in her opinion, Europe was entirely to blame for the way things were now. She said’-”

“What are you reading?” Bec asked sleepily.

Alana turned to him, slightly surprised to see him awake so suddenly but she motioned with the book. “Flannery O’Connor. When I was Abigail’s age, I was obsessed. I even tried to raise peacocks because she raised peacocks... But they were really stupid birds.”

Bec pulled the blanket around him more securely. “You could be reading to a killer.”

“Innocent until guilty and all that,” Alana said optimistically, turning in her spot to face more towards Bec and closing the book. “I’m about to broach the subject of that ‘Takes One to Know One’ article.”

“Oh, that,” The memory of the article flooded back into his waking memory which seemed to jumpstart his overactive brain again. “Did Jack send you?”

“No, I sent me,” Alana clarified.

Bec sighed and turned more over onto his back than his side. “I don’t think we’ve ever been alone in a room together, have we?”

“I haven’t noticed. Have we?” Her voice went slightly higher when she said that but Bec ignored it as she shot a quick look back to Abigail. “Not that we’re necessarily alone now.”

“Yeah, right,” Bec mumbled, pulling the blanket off of himself as he pulled his body into a sitting position. “Back to ‘Jack Crawford’s crime gimp’.”

“It certainly creates an image. I don’t need to talk about it if you don’t.”

“No, no, we can talk about or not talk about whatever you want. Actually, I was just enjoying listening to you read.”

Alana smiled but it slowly faded. “Abigail Hobbs is a success for you.”

With his head lulled against the back of the couch, Bec looked past her to see Abigail with her neck wrapped in thick bandages, dark blood still staining her face from what they couldn’t wash away. The uncertainty of the fact that she might never wake up leaving a sour taste in his mouth. The snake’s words were still so fresh in his mind.

“She doesn’t look like a success.”

“Don’t feel sorry for yourself because you saved this girl’s life,” Alana tried to console as if his own masculinity was on the line.

“I don’t,” Bec told, running his hands down his face. “I don’t feel sorry for myself at all. I feel, um I-I feel, um... good.”

It was a time later when Alana had decided to leave and Bec walked her out. However, he wasn’t ready to leave Abigail’s side just yet and returned to the third floor that she was on. He’d just made it out of the elevator when his phone went off in his pocket.

“Hello?” He answered.

“ _It’s Jack. Are you at the hospital?_ ”

“Yes, I am.”

“ _Stammets knows about Abigail Hobbs._ ”

The situation hit him like a ton of bricks. He hung up his phone and forced it back into his pocket before drawing his gun from its holster. Moving quickly back to Abigail’s room, he peered around the corner to see the covers on her bed pulled back and away but she was no longer there.

Rushing back out to the nurse's station, he demanded to them. “Where is she? Abigail Hobbs, the girl in 408. Where is she?”

“They took her for tests,” The nurse explained, too vaguely.

“Who took her? Who took her?!”

“I-I don’t know!” The nurse stammered.

Bec runs down the hall to the stairwell once he realized Stammets must’ve already had her. He went down to the last level and rushed through the hallways until he found an older man in hospital scrubs wheeling a patient in a bed out towards an exit.

“Hey!” Bec snapped, raising his gun to him and shooting the man once in the shoulders as he too was drawing a gun. Stammets’ gun clattered to the floor as he leaned against the stone walls in pain, clutching his bleeding shoulder.

Bec moved over, kicking the gun out of Stammets’ reach and checking to make sure Abigail was still alive as he held the injured man at gunpoint. He turned back to the killer as he grunted in pain on the ground. “What were you gonna do to her?”

“We all evolved from mycelium. I’m simply reintroducing her to the concept,” Stammets explained breathlessly.

“By burying her alive?” Bec snapped at him.

The killer grunted in pain. “The journalist said you understood me.”

“I _don’t_ ,” Bec disagreed.

“Well, you would have. You _would_ have,” Stammets declared. “If you walk through a field of mycelium, they know you are there. They know you are there. The spores reach for you as you walk by. I know who you’re reaching for. I _know_. Abigail Hobbs. You should have let me plant her. You would have found her in a field, where she was finally able to reach back!”

The empath stared back down at the other man in disgust.

 

“When you shot Eldon Stammets, who was it that you saw?” Huesyth asked.

Bec shook his head slightly. “I didn’t see Hobbs.”

“Then it’s not Hobbs’ ghost that’s haunting you, is it? It’s the inevitability of there being a man so bad that killing him felt good.”

The empath turned only minutely back to the doctor. “Killing Hobbs felt _just_.”

“Which is why you’re here,” Huesyth reiterated. “To prove that sprig of zest you feel is from saving Abigail, not from killing her dad.”

“I didn’t feel a sprig of zest when I shot Eldon Stammets.”

“You didn’t kill Eldon Stammets,” Huesyth reminded.

Bec sighed softly and let his eyes fall closed for a moment before they reopened to the same office they’d closed in. “I thought about it. I’m still not entirely sure that wasn’t my intention pulling the trigger.”

“If your intention was to kill him, it’s because you understand why he did the things he did. It’s beautiful in its own way giving voice to the unmentionable.”

The empath turned back to face the doctor again who was sitting on the edge of his desk. “I should’ve stuck to dancing or helping my uncle fix boat engines.”

“A boat engine is a machine, a predictable problem, easy to solve. You fail, there’s a paddle. Where was your paddle with Hobbs?”

Bec sat in his chair again and Huesyth stood to sit in the chair across from him. “You’re supposed to be my paddle.”

“I am,” The doctor insisted. “It wasn’t the act of killing Hobbs that got you down, was it? Did you really feel so bad because killing him felt so good?”

Hesitantly, Bec took in a sharp breath before speaking again, more softly. “I _liked_ killing Hobbs.”

“Killing must feel good to God too. He does it all the time. And are we not created in his image?”

“That depends who you ask,” Bec mumbled.

“God’s terrific.” Bec could hear the slight sarcasm in the doctor’s accent. “He dropped a church roof on thirty-four of his worshippers last Wednesday night in Texas, while they sang a hymn.”

“And did God feel good about that?”

Huesyth gave a slight shrug and matched eyes with the empath. “He felt powerful.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NBC's Hannibal, nor its script and characters, and I don't make any money off of this fic. I rewrote it for me and a friend of mine purely for fun as a way to explore the events but with our original characters and just decided to start posting it.
> 
> New chapter every Wednesday!!


	3. “Potage”

**WOLF TRAP, VIRGINIA**

Stumbling out onto his porch in the morning in nothing but his boxers and nightshirt was probably not the smartest idea but living so far out from the main road had lulled him into a state of comfort. No one ever came to visit his house and when they did they either called ahead or was his sister who showed up whenever she could and usually without warning.

That being said, when Bec came out that morning with Tuesday, an albino ball python with a matching brother named Thursday, wrapped loosely over his shoulders and saw Alana coming up towards his porch from the long driveway, he was rightfully surprised.

She smiled big at his appearance and only shot a briefly shocked look to the banana yellow python around his neck. “Morning.”

“Didn’t hear you drive up,” Bec tried to ask as a way to diffuse the slight embarrassment as she moved towards him.

“Hybrid. Great car for stalking,” Alana joked lightly.

Bec nodded at the joke. “Um, I’m compelled to go cover myself.”

“I have brothers,” Alana tried to explain.

“So do I but I’ll put a robe on just the same,” Bec started stepping back towards his front door. “You want a cup of coffee? And more immediately, why are you here?”

“Yes, and Abigail Hobbs woke up.”

Bec looked back at the woman as if she had made another bad joke but seeing that her face was completely serious had him sighing and looking off to the woods around his home. “Well, you know how to bury the lead.”

“You want me to get you a cup of coffee?” Alana asked.

Tuesday’s tongue slithered out and brushed against Bec’s neck which gave him a bit of a startle. “No. I want to get my coat.”

Her face was sympathetic as Alana stepped closer and insisted. “Let’s have a cup of coffee.”

She followed him inside and found herself sitting against the kitchen counter as he made the coffee with Tuesday still around his neck, the python giving her long looks every now and then the more she stared at him. Bec could tell Alana was starting to notice the abnormalities of his house as soon as she made it past the snake room to follow him into the kitchen. The reinforced glass, lack of sharp objects, and baby proofed corners giving all the context she needed to understand his mindset. He hoped she wouldn’t use that against him.

“What’s all this for?” She asked, a way of making conversation. Alana motioned specifically to the plastic covered corners and the empath raised an eyebrow at them.

“I get pretty clumsy,” Bec said. Not necessarily a lie but not the whole truth considering the whole truth speaks too much to the mental instability that he knows is there.

The home phone plugged into the wall on the kitchen counter kept ringing along with Bec’s cell phone vibrating on the island next to Alana. She gave it a sour look as she sipped at the coffee Bec offered.

“Is he gonna keep calling?” Bec asked from the snake room, slipping Tuesday back into his terrarium despite his protesting coil around Bec’s warm hand.

“Jack wants you to go see her,” Alana explained.

Calmly, Bec came back into the kitchen, picking up the mug he left on the counter and taking a sip from it. “And you don’t.”

“Eventually. Jack thinks Abigail was an accomplice to her father’s crimes. I don’t want to get in the middle of you and Jack, but if I can be helpful to you as a buffer-”

“I-I like you as a buffer. I also like the fact that you rattle Jack. He respects you far too much to yell at you, no matter…how much he wants to. It’s good qualities to have.”

“And I take advantage of it,” Alana clarified with a smile.

Bec nodded in agreement. They both went quiet for a second before the empath spoke up again. “Abigail Hobbs doesn’t have _anyone_.”

“...You can’t be her everyone,” Alana added. “When I said what I was going to say in my head, it sounded really insulting, so I’m going to find another way to say it.”

Bec put the mug on the counter beside him. “Say the insulting way.”

Alana gave him a tight smile. “Snakes keep a promise a person can’t.”

“I’m not collecting another stray.”

“The first person Abigail talks to about what happened can’t be anyone who was there when it happened. So that means no Dr. Cavalli either.”

Bec nodded stiffly. “Yeah, much less the guy who killed her dad. Jack’s wrong about Abigail.”

“Let me reach out to her in my own way.”

 

**B.A.U. HEADQUARTERS, QUANTICO, VIRGINIA**

“I got seven families waiting,” Jack reminded firmly. “No, let me rephrase: _Demanding_ that we find whatever’s left of their daughters. Abigail Hobbs may be the only person who knows the truth.”

“You can’t ask her right now, Jack,” Alana, sitting beside Huesyth as they met in Jack’s office, retorted. “We have to create a safe place for her first or you won’t get any answers.”

“I respect your sympathy for her, Dr. Bloom. I hope one day you’ll appreciate my lack of it.”

“You really think Abigail Hobbs helped her father kill those girls?”

Jack explained. “I think it’s a possibility that needs to be ruled out. If Abigail didn’t help her father, maybe she knows who did.”

The doctor looked between the two as they prattled back and forth to each other about their conflicting opinions. It seemed clear to Huesyth that Bec should’ve been there from the beginning. The empath had been adamant about keeping up with Abigail’s progress even after she was taken out of surgery and declared comatose but alive. He was loyal to her as he spent hours in her hospital room waiting for some kind of change to suggest she would wake again. He must’ve been going slightly stir crazy about not getting to see Abigail’s waking condition. That simply wouldn’t do.

Huesyth cleared his throat after choosing to stay primarily quiet through most of this meeting and their eyes all snapped to him. “How was she when you saw her?”

“Surprisingly practical,” Alana described.

“ _Suspiciously_ practical?” Jack pressed.

Huesyth turned to the agent sitting behind his desk. “I would suggest she can be practical without being a murderer.”

“I think she’s hiding something,” Alana finally admitted.

“It may simply be her trauma,” Huesyth considered.

“Yeah, it could also be more,” Alana combatted as if beginning to notice that there were more layers to the Hobbs girl than some were willing to see. “She has a penchant for manipulation. Withheld information to gain information. She demonstrated only enough emotions to prove she had them.”

“You beginning to appreciate my lack of sympathy?” Jack asked the woman. She gave him a tired expression with a raised eyebrow.

Huesyth looked to the fellow doctor beside him. “You said it may be more than trauma yet you question her involvement in the murders the father committed.”

“What I’m questioning is her state of mind,” Alana clarified.

“I want Bec Reyes to talk to her,” Jack announced.

Alana narrowed her eyes at the agent in disagreement. “Jack! Not yet!”

“You are _not_ Bec Reyes’ psychiatrist, Dr. Bloom. Dr. Cavalli is.”

Huesyth offered Alana a pitying look but knew this is what Bec wanted.

 

“Garret Jacob Hobbs the, uh, Minnesota Shrike,” Bec’s voice flooded out into the hallway from the lecture hall he was speaking in. “Abducted and murdered eight girls over an eight-month period. Each of them had the same hair color, same eye color, same age, same height, same weight as his daughter Abigail. There was a ninth victim who also fit Abigail Hobbs’ profile, but Garret Jacob Hobbs didn’t murder her. The killer who did wanted us to know he wasn’t the Minnesota Shrike.”

Huesyth moved silently into the room behind Jack as the image of the girl on the stag’s head was projected onto the wall above Bec. “He was better than that. He is an intelligent psychopath. He is a sadist. He will never kill like this again. So how do we catch him?”

“Giving a lecture on Hobbs’ copycat?” Huesyth whispered to Jack.

“Well, we need whatever good minds we can get on this,” Jack replied.

“This copycat is an avid reader of Freddie Lounds and Tattlecrime.com. He had _intimate_ knowledge of Garret Jacob Hobbs’ murders, motives, patterns enough to recreate them and, arguably, elevate them to art. How intimately did he know Garret Jacob Hobbs? Did he appreciate him from afar or did he engage him?”

Huesyth couldn’t help the small smirk that tugged at his lips as he listened to Bec’s questions. All of which he would have answered for the empath if he really wanted him to.

“Did he ingratiate himself into Hobbs’ life? Did Hobbs know his copycat as he was known? Before Garret Jacob Hobbs murdered his wife and attempted to do the same to his daughter, he received an untraceable call. I believe the as-yet unidentified caller was our copycat killer.”

The class came to an end soon enough and as the students began filing out of the room again, Jack turned to the doctor. “He’ll listen to you more than me, Doctor. I’ll wait outside.”

Jack followed the students out of the lecture hall and soon the doctor and empath found themselves alone together.

“Did you come to listen to the lecture, Dr. Cavalli, or is there something Jack needs?” Bec asked, his back turned to Huesyth as he gathered his notes up again.

Huesyth slipped his hands into his suit pants pockets and sauntered up to stand next to Bec at his desk. “Agent Crawford has decided Alana’s way of approaching Abigail’s situation will take too much time. Time that would be better spent trying to find the other victims remains.”

“So he’s sending us in her place?” Bec asked with a raised brow.

“He’d certainly like your expertise on the matter,” Huesyth added.

Bec scoffed softly but still didn’t look up at the other man. “Alana said it was unwise of us to meet with Abigail so soon after her waking up.”

“I usually agree with Dr. Bloom’s opinions but I believe the urgency of the situation has proven more prevalent.”

“I understand but I’m not sure Alana will be very happy about this,” Bec explained.

Huesyth cocked his head to the side slightly in confusion. “Isn’t visiting Abigail what you wanted?”

The shorter man gave a breathy chuckle. “I’d rather not step on any toes to get what I want.”

The empath turned his attention back to packing his things and didn’t catch the pointed stare the doctor gave the side of his head. Huesyth sighed and placed a hand over Bec’s right wrist to halt his constant movements. The empath’s gestures stuttered at the sudden touch and he stared at the other man’s hand on top of his for a moment before finally looking up at the doctor. He realized just how close Huesyth was standing near him and how the doctor’s eyes briefly looked down to his lips.

“Sometimes you need to make your own decisions, Bec. Sometimes it's best to do what'll make _you_ happiest.”

Huesyth bent down and kissed him.

Bec was left temporarily stunned but once his brain came back from the sudden short circuit, he shifted so their mouths could more adequately fit together. He was only briefly aware of one of Huesyth’s hands coming up to rest against his neck and his thumb stroking across his stubbled jaw.

Upon separating, Bec realized he hadn’t been breathing throughout the entire kiss. As the empath stood there trying to gain his bearings once more, Huesyth pressed insistent but light kisses to the side of his mouth and jaw.

“T-That…” Bec started, his voice coming out breathy. “Didn’t seem all that professional, Doctor.”

“I’m aware,” Huesyth murmured right next to Bec’s ear, his warm breath against his skin causing a shiver to run down the empath’s spine.

“I don’t think this is very smart…” Bec murmured and put a hand on Huesyth’s arm, applying enough pressure to cause him to pause.

The empath couldn't see Huesyth’s reaction from the way he had his face basically buried in the curls of his hair but the doctor finally pulled back and away. Straightening himself up and clearing his throat before speaking again. “I apologize, Bec. That was rude of me.”

“No, no, it was-” “It’s fine, Bec. It seems though that our situation is time sensitive. We should be going.”

Huesyth brushed passed him in a hurried rush, leaving the empath speechless and beyond confused at what had just happened with a bright red blush staining his face.

 

**PORT HAVEN PSYCHIATRIC FACILITY**

**BALTIMORE, MARYLAND**

Though given the okay to talk to Abigail as Jack apparently didn’t agree with Alana’s way of babying the Hobbs girl into speaking her mind, Bec found that the only thing on his mind was the fact that his psychiatrist had kissed him in his classroom and hadn’t talked about it since. In fact, the doctor acted completely normal, so much so that Bec began to suspect he’d hallucinated the whole thing. Should he tell Jack about it? Wasn’t it illegal to have personal relationships with patients? Well, it seemed that Huesyth didn’t really think of Bec as an actual patient and more of a friend he could only talk to when on a schedule. Is ‘friend’ the right word now?

His confusion and jumbled personal feelings dominated any want to actually work on murder cases or grizzled corpses. Being so caught up in own head, he didn’t notice the other female voice coming from Abigail’s hospital room until they were right outside the door.

“-man named Bec Reyes. Works for the FBI but isn’t FBI,” Was muffled through the door and he opened it to see the curly, bright red hair of Freddie Lounds as she was sitting on Abigail’s bed. “He captures insane men because he can think like them-” She looked back at the two men as they entered but paid them no mind as she continued to Abigail. “Because he is insane.”

Abigail gave the men a strange look but Bec was too focused on Freddie’s continued slander of his name.

“Would you excuse us, please?” Bec told Freddie. The redhead stood from where she was seated on Abigail’s bed and Bec introduced himself to Abigail instead. “Special Agent Bec Reyes.”

“By Special Agent he means not really an agent,” Freddie interrupted just to add salt in the wound. “He didn’t get past the screening process. Too unstable.”

Bec took a step closer to the journalist but Huesyth intercepted him before he could say something he’d probably end up regretting. “I really must insist you leave the room.”

Freddie gave the doctor a pursed-lipped stare before she drew a business card out of her purse and offered it to Abigail. “If you wanna talk-”

With great disdain, Bec snatched it out of her hand, folded it up and tucked it into his inner jacket pocket to make sure it was out of the way. Huesyth gave the journalist a scolding look as she finally made her way out of the room.

Once she left, the attention was turned back to the injured girl in the bed. Abigail remained confused and maybe even slightly wary of the empath now that Freddie had implanted the idea of him being insane in her head.

“Abigail,” Bec started as he pulled his glasses off his face and tucked them into his jacket as well. “This is Dr. Cavalli. Do you remember us?”  
She looked between the men but her eyes then landed on Bec. “I remember you... You killed my dad.”

Suddenly, the uncomfortable aura of the confrontation was thick enough to taste in all of its sour glory. The empath had no idea how to proceed without probably making the situation worse but then thankfully Huesyth stepped forward to speak. “You’ve been in bed for days, Abigail. Why don’t we have a walk?”

The time it took Abigail to get dressed and for them to take a stroll to the richly colored greenhouse in the facility allowed enough of a breather for the initial discomfort to diffuse moderately. Giving Bec time to gather his thoughts long enough to get his mind back on course. Due to her legs not being used for so long, Abigail had to walk to the glass-enclosed room with an arm entwined with Bec’s to keep herself from falling over and Huesyth shadowed behind the two as they moved ahead of him.

As they moved through the potted foliage, Bec looked down at the girl but she kept her eyes on the concrete ground in front of her to watch her steps. She had a scarf tied securely over the bandage on the slice across her neck.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t save your mother,” Bec tried to apologize. “We did everything we could but she was already gone.”

“I know. I saw him kill her,” Abigail forced out. They held her steady as she lowered herself onto a public bench within the room to take the weight off her shaky legs. “He was loving right up until the second he wasn’t. Kept telling me he was sorry, to just hold still... He was gonna make it all go away.”

“There was plenty wrong with your father, Abigail, but there’s nothing wrong with you,” Bec expressed. She looked up at him for the first time since they left the hospital room, this time not of wariness or confusion. “You say he was loving. I believe it. That’s what you brought out in him.”

“It’s not all I brought out in him…” Abigail mumbled to herself before looking back up at the two men. “I’m gonna be messed up, aren’t I? I’m worried about nightmares.”

“We’ll help you with the nightmares,” Huesyth offered.

Bec slipped into the open seat next to Abigail on the bench. “There’s no such thing as getting used to what you experienced. It bothers me a lot. I worry about nightmares too.”

The girl turned to him again. “So killing somebody... even if you have to do it, it feels that bad?”

He went quiet and was only vaguely aware of Huesyth’s intense gaze on him. “I...It’s the ugliest thing in the world.”

Abigail swallowed heavily, letting out a deep breath before she looked back to them with watery eyes. “I wanna go home.”

They couldn’t give her that yet though. She wasn’t cleared to leave the hospital and telling her that was nearly heartbreaking to Bec. No amount of sadness, however, would disguise the fact that he could feel Huesyth’s eyes on him the entire time. As they were leaving the hospital grounds, they found Freddie leaned carelessly against the bumper of Huesyth’s Bentley.

She gave them a cheeky smile as she stood up straight, taking a few steps forward and holding out her hand. “Special Agent Reyes. I never formally introduced myself. I’m Freddie Lounds.”

Bec sighed, slipping his glasses back onto his face and ignoring the offered hand. “Are you trying to salvage this joke from the mouth of madness?”

Freddie retracted her hand back. “Please. Let me apologize for my behavior in there. It was sloppy and misguided... and hurtful.”

“Miss Lounds,” Huesyth deadpanned from over Bec’s right shoulder. “Now is not the time.”

She gave the doctor a strange look but continued anyway. “Look, you and I may have our own reasons for being here, but I also think we both genuinely care about what happens to Abigail Hobbs.”

“You told her I was insane,” Bec reminded.

“I can undo that,” Freddie stated.

The empath couldn’t help the heavy sigh that escaped his mouth. “You help Abigail see me as more than her father’s killer and I help you with online ad sales?”

“I can undo what I said,” Freddie explained. “I can also make it a lot worse.”

Bec raised an eyebrow at the woman’s idle threats before narrowing his eyes at her taking a few steps into her personal space.

“Miss Lounds,” He began, looming over the shorter woman despite her facial expressions not changing. “It’s not very smart to piss off a guy who thinks about _killing_ people for a living.”

One side of her mouth pulled up in a slight smirk.

 

“‘It isn’t very smart to piss off a guy who thinks about killing people for a living,’” Jack read from the article that Freddie had posted barely a few hours after they had left her outside the hospital. The older agent looked between the three in front of him, Alana, Bec, and Huesyth, and let his eyes land on the male doctor. “You know what else isn’t very smart? You were there with him. And you let those words come out of his mouth.”  
Huesyth narrowed his eyes from where he was leaning on his hand against the arm of his chair. “I am his therapist, Jack. Not his parent. He is an adult and I trust Bec to speak for himself.”

“Evidently you shouldn’t,” Jack retaliated.

“I’m just happy the story wasn’t about Abigail Hobbs,” Alana added from the right side of Bec.

“Well, then it’s a victory,” Jack shot back sarcastically. “So, Abigail Hobbs wants to go home. Let’s take her home.”

“What Abigail wants and what she needs are different things,” Alana pressed again. “Taking her out of a controlled environment would be reckless.”

“You said she was practical,” Jack reminded.

Bec spoke up finally in a mumble. “That could just mean she has a dissociative disorder.”

“You take her home, she may experience intense emotions, respond aggressively, or re-enact some aspect of the traumatic event without even realizing it,” Alana listed as she tried to explain how unwise it could be.

“Where do you weigh in on this, Doctor?” Jack asked Huesyth.

“Dr. Bloom is right,” Huesyth agreed but he turned back to the agent. “But there is a scenario where revisiting the trauma event could help Abigail heal and actually prevent denial.”

Alana shook her head in obvious disagreement but Jack continued now that he was given an opinion that better matched his. “Then we have a difference of opinion. Therefore, I am going to choose the opinion that best serves my agenda. I need to know if you’re right about the copycat, Bec.”

“We have no way of knowing what’s waiting for her when she goes home,” Alana snapped in frustration.

 

**HOBBS RESIDENCE, BLOOMINGTON, MINNESOTA**

Another green light that had the three escorting Abigail back to her home days later when the strength in her legs came back to her. The young Hobbs girl remained primarily quiet through the trip despite the adults attempting to converse with her at times. They learned very quickly to leave her to her silence. If she wanted to talk she would’ve.

Upon pulling up to the Hobbs residence, the first thing they noticed was the word “CANNIBALS” written in a scrawl of black graffiti spray paint across the entire garage door. Upon leaving the car, Abigail stood before it, rereading it over and over again as the horror dawned on her again. The trauma and grief were settling into her mind. She finally tore her eyes away and moved towards the front porch where the same word was painted across the front door as well. Stopping short of the door, she stared down at the stain in the concrete of the porch where Bec could still clearly see the afterimage of her mother choking on her own blood and dying in his arms.

“Is this where my mom died?” Abigail asked.

The three adults had kept their distance from her, giving her enough space to breath and move at her own pace. Bec spoke up as he moved closer to the porch she was on. “Yes.”

“I-I was sort of expecting a body outline in chalk or tape,” Abigail explained. Trying to lighten the mood despite her watery tone sounding like she was close to crying.

“They only do that if you’re still alive and taken to the hospital before they finish the crime scene.” Bec inwardly cringed after the words left his mouth. Why would he actually say that out loud to someone who's staring at the place their mother was murdered?

Abigail, however, didn’t even seem to hear what he had said, keeping her eyes trained on the stain before muttering to herself. “Goodbye, mom.”

She moved away from the porch and found her way inside with the adults trailing her as she found her way back into the kitchen. A lot of personal effects were boxed up and taken in as evidence which left the counters and walls nearly all bare.

“If you ever wanna go, you just have to say so and we’ll go,” Alana told the girl, giving her a way out if she really didn’t want to experience the trauma again.

“Go where? The hospital?” Abigail questioned, a bite of acid in her words.

“For now,” Alana told.

Bec had no idea where she’d go besides the hospital. The house was stained by the darkness that inhabited it and Bec could identify the chemicals the cleaners used to remove the blood from the floors just by the smell that still lingered.

Abigail ran her fingertips over the back of a photo pinned to the fridge. “They turned all the pictures around.”

“Crime scene cleaners will do that,” Alana explained.

The Hobbs girl looked over the floor and the cabinets that would’ve been covered in blood. “They did a really good job. Is that where all my blood was?”

“Yes,” Bec responded.

He looked between the girl and the floor before he found he could see the outline of the blood patterns forming on the linoleum as if bleeding back into reality. It made him flinch slightly, blinking it away from his vision. A hand came and rested on the small of his back when he began taking a few shuffling steps backward as if running away would scrub the blood out of his mind. The empath looked to his side to see it was Huesyth, standing straight and not even looking at Bec or acknowledging the hand he had on the younger man’s back. The doctor removed the hand a second later when he was sure Bec wasn’t trying to run away.

“You do this a lot?” Abigail started again and when the empath turned his attention back to the girl, she had her eyes trained firmly on him. No one apparently noticed the doctor’s touch besides him. “Go places and think about killing?”

He swallowed heavily. “Too often.”

“So you pretended to be my dad?” Abigail asked.

Bec stepped forward, out of the doctor’s reach in case he felt the need to try and touch Bec again. “And people like your dad.”

“What did it feel like? To be him?”

He’d never been asked to explain his empathy or how it felt when he stepped into the minds of others. No one ever really asked him how it made him feel. “It... feels like I’m talking to his shadow suspended on dust.”

Abigail raised her eyebrows at him. “No wonder you have nightmares.”

The girl turned away from him and leaned against the counter that one of the evidence boxes rested on.

“The attacks on you and your mother were different,” Bec continued to explain. “They were desperate. Your dad knew he was out of time. Somebody told him we were coming.”

Caught off guard slightly, Abigail turned back to him. “The man on the phone?”

“It was a blocked call. Did you recognize his voice?”

The Hobbs girl shook her head. “I had never heard it before.”

Alana spoke up. “Was there anybody new in your father’s life? Someone you met or someone he talked about?”

For a second, Bec cast a glance back to Huesyth just to remind himself that the other man was still in the room. The doctor watched from a distance, silent and observing.

Abigail contemplated the question but couldn’t seem to think of anything so Bec said. “Abigail, he may have been contacted by another killer. A copycat.”

“Someone who’s still out there?” Abigail asked.

Bec nodded. “Yeah…”

Her eyes went wide only briefly. Abigail seemed uncomfortable knowing someone like her father was out there and no one could blame her. As they move into the living room, now looking through boxes of her and her family's evidenced belongings, Abigail asked. “Can you catch somebody’s crazy?”

Alana came and rested under the box on the floor next to the one Abigail was looking through, responding. “Folie à deux.”

“What?” Abigail questioned.

“It’s a French psychiatric term. Madness shared by two.”

Absentmindedly, Bec was only half listening to the women conversing at his side. He could feel the memories of that day beginning to seep their way back to the front of his mind. Hobbs was still choking on his own blood and the snake was still coiled around his throat as it hissed at Bec to “ **See** ”.

Almost as if on cue, Huesyth walked back into the room and his voice pulled Bec out of his mind. “One cannot be delusional if the belief in question is accepted as ordinary by others in that person’s culture or subculture. Or family.”

“My dad didn’t seem delusional. He was a perfectionist,” Abigail explained.

“Your dad left hardly any evidence,” Bec told the girl as he stood up from the box he was thumbing through.

This stopped Abigail cold and she looked up at the empath with a curious gaze. “Is that why you let me come home? To find evidence?”

“It was one of many considerations,” Huesyth added.

“Are we gonna reenact the crime?” Abigail asked. She sat up on her knees and pointed to Bec. “You be my dad,” Then back to Alana. “You be my mom,” Then to Huesyth. “And you be the man on the phone.”

The girl’s eyes lingered on the doctor a second longer than was necessary and Huesyth didn’t break the eye contact until Abigail herself looked away first when Alana started speaking again. “Abigail, we wanted you to come home to help you leave home behind.”

“You’re not gonna find any of those girls, you know?”

Bec asked. “What makes you say that?”

“He would honor every part of them,” Abigail told surely. “He used to make plumbing putty out of elk’s bones. Whatever bones are left of those girls are probably holding pipes together.”

“Where did he make this putty?” Huesyth asked.

“At the cabin. I can show you tomorrow-” The sound of the front door opening in the distance made the adults in the room bristle.

“Abigail, there’s someone here,” Alana said.

A girl that looked quite similar to Abigail despite being a breath of an inch taller and a shade darker than the Hobbs girl came into the doorway of the living room and smiled in relief when she saw Abigail sitting among the boxes. “Hey, Abigail.”

The girl’s name was Marissa Schurr, she was apparently one of Abigail’s classmates and friends who came to check on her when she saw the car parked outside the house. Abigail asked the adults if she could go walk in the yard with Marissa so they could catch up and though Alana was hesitant, she was allowed the freedom.

The female doctor left the room and Bec continued going through the boxes until he felt eyes on the back of his head that sent a shiver down his spine that he tried to suppress.

“Have you found anything?” The doctor asked from behind him and made his way over to stand by Bec’s side.

The empath cleared his throat. “Nothing of importance.”

The doctor must have noticed how tight the muscles in Bec’s shoulders were and the way he pressed the heel of his hand into his closed eye as if to try and relieve some of the pressure pounding in his skull. “Have your migraines been getting worse?”

Bec gave him a sideways glance out of the corner of his eye, only for a second but long enough for Huesyth to catch. “The stress makes them worse.”

“That much is clear. The aspirin you take probably doesn’t help your nosebleeds, however.”

“I pick my battles,” Bec monotoned.

The empath rubbed at his face again, less of stopping the headaches and more keeping himself awake. The worsening dark circles under his eyes were clue enough to the state of his sleep schedule or lack thereof. Huesyth stepped up to Bec’s side and let his hand hover over the back of the shorter man’s neck, not touching just yet and more of an offer.

“May I touch you, Bec?” Huesyth asked softly.

Another shiver but this one was easier to keep from being obvious. It was easy to realize that Doctor Cavalli was far more… hands-on than others in Bec’s life. So many people seemed too scared or weirded out to touch him in any capacity and it’s not like Bec really wanted them to anyway. He had no idea why the thought of the other man touching him didn’t immediately make him want to scratch off his own skin. Why someone so imposing and pompous had such a calming hand. It really was a terrifying power and one that might’ve rivaled Bec’s empathic abilities.

So he nodded and the doctor let his hand fall gently against the skin on the back of Bec’s neck that was revealed above his jacket collar, fingers brushing through the shorter curly hair at the base of his skull. Huesyth’s fingers worked diligently into the tense knots of muscle across his neck and shoulders that made the empath ache. As the knots were untwisted, the pressure in Bec’s head seemed to lessen, minutely but noticeably, and the relief of pain made a sigh slip from Bec’s lips.

Shouting from outside pulled the two men out of the moment, popping the bubble they had formed around them, and Bec rushed outside with Huesyth on his tail. As they rounded the corner to go into the backyard, they could see a man standing at the edge of the woods, glaring at Abigail and Marissa before he spat at them and retreated back into the trees.

A shaken Abigail turned to them and hurried to their sides to explain. “He said he was somebody’s brother.”

Another woman came barreling into view, obviously worried and displeased. “ _Marissa_ ,” She demanded. “Come home.”

“No!” Marissa snapped back to the woman who must’ve been her mother.

Her mother folded her arms securely over her chest. “Come home!”

“Can you _stop_ being such a bitch?” Marissa demanded. Bec could see Huesyth staring between the two women as they argued, the doctor’s eyes landing on the younger girl after the last comment. Marissa looked at Abigail again and said, “See you later,” as she moved to her mother’s side.

“Bye,” Abigail responded softly.

Marissa’s mother grabbed her by the arm when she was in her reach and dragged her away, out of the yard to no doubt yell at her for being so disrespectful. Abigail looked between the two men left meekly and Bec ran a calming hand down her arm as he passed her to go look at where the strange man might’ve gone. Huesyth and Bec ventured beyond the edge of the woods, scanning between trees in hopes of finding where the man might’ve gone but returned to Abigail with nothing.

“He’s gone,” Bec informed her. “You’ve never seen him before?”

“No,” Abigail said. Neither of them really paying attention when Huesyth hid the rock Marissa threw at the man under leaves with his shoe.

“Let’s go back to the hotel. We will go to the cabin tomorrow,” Bec stated.

Huesyth piped up. “We should report this, yes?”

Bec nodded at him. “Yes.”

They returned to the house to inform Alana and later parted ways with barely a word when they arrived at the nearest motel they decided to stay at.

 

_The snake is there, hanging from a tree with its scales and feathers reflecting the golden light of an impending sunset. The killer whispered into Abigail’s ear over and over as he held her close to him in a tight grip, promises of something better, promises he couldn’t keep. “I’m sorry, okay? This will all stop.”_

_The girl was begging, pleading with the killer as he pressed the knife closer to her delicate throat. “Please…”_

_“I’m gonna make it all go away,” The knife bit across her flesh in a gruesome slash, blood gushing from the wound it left. The snake seemed almost startled as it flinched-_

The alarm blared in Bec’s ear, dragging him from the nightmare he couldn’t escape from himself. Breathing coming in heavy intakes as he reached over to turn the 7:30 A.M. alarm off again. His body was drenched in sweat, his hair stuck to his face as if he had just got done swimming and beyond the salty stench of sweat was the bite of copper. He looked down to see the pillowcase he’d been resting on had a dark stain of blood soaked through it almost as deep as the sweat. Pulling himself into a sitting position on the edge of his bed without the sweltering heat of the covers trapping the sweat against his body, Bec let his head fall into his hands despite the obvious smears of blood no doubt staining his face from his nose.

He rose from his sitting position and peeled off the soiled nightshirt, tossing it aside as he moved the blinds from the hotel window to finally let the morning light drain into the dark room.

It came in a flash when he remembered the blank journal he had in his bag. A last minute pack that he still hadn’t used. Bec slipped it out from the clothes it was stuffed under and wondered just how serious a dream journal really is to his mental state. Shrugging to himself, he began unsteadily rewriting the events of the nightmare.

 

Returning to the cabin in the woods, even with the added police escort, still gave Bec a nauseous feeling. It was only his second time coming back to the Shrike’s nest however and professionals would say that it’d be a common reaction. Abigail moved swiftly though, getting out of the car and waiting almost impatiently for one of the officers to remove the crime scene tape from the doorway and opening the door for them. She entered into the darkness of the doorway like she was slipping into the gaping maw of the Shrike himself and the three adults accompanied her.

Abigail looked around at the items remaining in the cabin, the thin veil of dust that coated some of the older pieces of mounted animals. “He cleaned everything. He said he was afraid of germs, but I guess he was just afraid of getting caught.”

“No one else ever came here with your dad except you,” Bec stated.

She shook her head without looking back at the empath. “He made everything by himself. Glue, butter, he sold the pelts on eBay or in town. He’d make pillows. No parts went to waste. Otherwise, it was murder…” She turned back to Bec, wide-eyed with realization and slight unease. “He was feeding them to us. Wasn’t he?”

“It’s... very likely,” Huesyth disclosed.

Abigail gasped softly and seemed to hold back a retch. “Before he cut my throat, he told me he killed those girls so he wouldn’t have to kill me.”

Alana stepped forward and Abigail looked to her as she came into her field of vision. “You’re not responsible for anything your father did, Abigail.”

“If he would’ve just killed me, none of those other girls would be dead.”

“We don’t know that. Your father-” A dark droplet landed on Abigail’s forehead, making her flinch. She wiped it away in surprise and it came off onto her hands in a dark red color. They all looked up and saw the blood leaking thickly through the boards of the upstairs loft.

Bec moved up the stairs only to find the ashen body of a girl hanging skewered from a rack of antlers in the darkened room in only her underwear, blood running down the length of her body from the main stabbing point in her lower chest.

He couldn’t help but notice every dark similarity of the set up to the girl found on display in the field and held back the urge to rush back downstairs. Bec slipped his phone out of his pocket, dialing a number and raising it to his ear. “I need ERT at the Hobbs cabin.”

His phone was slid back into his pocket and he used a tissue from his jacket to lift the dead girl’s dangling head up to get a better look at her face hidden among her long, dark hair. He could recognize that face, one that looked similar to Abigail’s.

“Abigail!” Alana shouted from downstairs and soon the young Hobbs girl barreled up the stairs only to scream when she saw her friend hanging dead from the rack of antlers.

“Marissa!” She shrieked.

Hurriedly, Alana ran up after her and wrapped her in a hug, taking her outside to wait by one of the police vehicles as the FBI began showing up again. Bec could tell when Jack rolled up to the scene without even having to look out one of the cabin’s scarce windows.

Bec stared at the body surrounded and impaled by jagged antlers, her arms outstretched from her sides as if she’d been crucified. He turned slightly to the only other person still in the room with him, Huesyth, and asked. “Do you think she knew the guy down by the stream?”

“Somebody’s brother,” Huesyth remembered out loud.

“Not somebody. Abigail said he asked if she helped her dad take his sister’s lungs while she was alive.”

Huesyth relayed. “The young woman on the stag head.”

“Cassie Boyle had a brother, Nicholas. But Garrett Jacob Hobbs didn’t kill Cassie Boyle.”

“I know,” The doctor agreed. “Garret Jacob Hobbs would’ve honored every part of her.”

He heard the last step of Jack’s shoes coming up the stairs before the older agent began speaking and Bec swallowed heavily to himself but didn’t meet the agent’s eyes when he. “You brought Abigail Hobbs back to Minnesota to find out if she was involved in her father’s murders and another girl dies.”

Bec held Marissa’s head up again, this time with gloved hands, and checked the inside of her mouth with the tip of a pen. “Yep, scraped his knuckle on her teeth. There’s foreign tissue and what could be trace amounts of blood.”

Huesyth looked over his shoulder to see as well, a safe enough distance away from the body but close enough to Bec that he could feel the doctor’s warmth even through his jacket.

“You said that this copycat was an intelligent psychopath, Bec,” Jack continued, ignoring the empath’s findings. “That there would be no traceable motive, no pattern. He wouldn’t kill again this way. You said it.”

Bec refused to look up at the other agent, instead focusing all his attention on the body. “I may have been wrong about that.”

“Yes, because Garret Jacob Hobbs never struck his victims. Why would the copycat do it?”

“I think he was provoked,” Huesyth added. Bec subconsciously thanked him for the momentary breather where Jack didn’t have his attention on the empath’s mistakes. “Nicholas Boyle murdered this girl and his own sister.”

“With or without Abigail Hobbs?” Jack asked.

Finally finding his voice again, Bec cut in quickly. “Without.”

“Well, do you think that Abigail Hobbs knew Nicholas or Cassie Boyle?”

Another quick “No,” from the empath.

Jack went quiet for a brief second before he began taking slow steps forward towards the other two. “You don’t think she knew them or don’t wanna think that she knew them?”

As stubborn as he was, Bec instead turned his attention slightly over to Huesyth, as if the doctor was the one he was trying to convince. “She said she didn’t know them.”

The doctor gave him an almost sympathetic look before Jack sighed defeatedly. “Dr. Bloom says that Abigail has a penchant for, uh, manipulation. Is she manipulating you, Bec?”

“Agent Crawford,” Huesyth asserted, a warning to keep him from pressing into a wound he had no right to press into. Bec could see the doctor’s look darken as the agent moved closer.

“Look, he said he was wrong about the copycat killer. I want to know what else he’s _wrong_ about.”

“Whoever killed the girl on the field killed this girl, I’m right about that,” Bec snapped, finally looking up towards Jack long enough to glare at him. “He knew exactly how to mount the body. Wound patterns are almost identical to Cassie Boyle. Same design, the same humiliation.”

“Abigail Hobbs is not a killer,” Huesyth proclaimed. “But she could be the target of one.”

Another second of silence and Jack adds. “I think it’s time that Abigail Hobbs left home permanently. Doctor, would you be good enough to collect Abigail and all of her belongings and escort her out of Minnesota, please?”

Huesyth briefly looked to Bec but went back to Jack and promptly left the loft area. Bec almost began following him before Jack stopped him with an arm blocking his way. “Not you, Bec. I want you here.”

Bec watched as Huesyth got to escape the dark recesses of the cabin and could feel the pain of a migraine creeping back to the forefront of his mind.

 

The spike of stubborn displeasure he got from being separated from the empath was shockingly potent. Huesyth had no idea why his mind seemed so attached to the younger man and his self-destructive ways but the times his brain allowed his intended affections to surface was… rude to say the least. It wasn’t fair to Bec but he just seemed so unaware of how desirable he actually was. It seemed everything that made Bec interesting to Huesyth is what made everyone else dislike him. He could only imagine how Bec must’ve felt having to stay within the confines of the Shrike’s nest to examine the body. The empath’s abilities could have let him feel the way Hobbs diced up the bodies of the girls and seeing first hand what his own mind can do to Bec made the doctor hesitant in leaving him there alone.

He knew, however, that Bec would appreciate Abigail being brought to safety and out of the reach of this Nicholas they were after. So Huesyth bit his tongue and drove Alana and Abigail back to the Hobbs house to retrieve the girl’s things they had left there. By the time they got there, it was already dark and the frenzy of reporters was already swarming outside of the police barricade they had set up at the end of the driveway. They parted as Huesyth drove the car through them and passed the barricade, cameras flashing into the windows as they went but the crowd quickly came together again to shout at the girl when she exited the car after the two doctors.

Suddenly, a distraught woman broke from the crowd, wheezing and weeping as she slapped off the police hands that tried to hold her back and rushed towards Abigail.

“You killed my daughter!” She wept.

The Hobbs girl tried to go to her, to explain herself and what happened but Alana held her back with a hand on her arm as Huesyth kept the mother from attacking Abigail.

“Why come back here? Why did you come back here? Why come back?!” She wailed before she crumbled and sobbed into Huesyth’s arms.

The doctor rubbed her back as the policeman regained his hold on her, Alana coming over to check on her as well. They returned to Abigail to usher her inside before anyone else thought to ignore the barricade in hopes of getting a word from the girl but were again stopped short when someone spoke from the dark by the house.

“Abigail!” They looked up and saw Freddie step out of the shadows, her fiery red hair so vivid against the black.

“Miss Lounds,” Huesyth asserted. “You’re on the wrong side of the police line.”

She came closer and another officer watching the door stepped forward before she could reach them completely. “I’ve been covering the Minnesota Shrike long before you got involved,” Freddie quipped at Huesyth but was escorted away back to the barricade by the officer, not without continuing to try and persuade Abigail. “I wanna help you tell your story. You need me now more than ever.”

Huesyth followed the officer and Freddie as she continued on. “I’m not the only one lurking about the Hobbs house peeking in windows. You really should monitor those police lines more carefully.”

That sounded suspiciously specific. The doctor stopped the officer and allowed the redhead to turn back to him so he could ask. “Have you seen a young man, mid-20s, ginger hair? Unwashed.”

“I’ll tell you if I saw him if you tell me why it’s important,” Freddie challenged.

A self-serving, opportunistic, little fox. _Amusing_.

Freddie offered the information, in exchange for information on behalf of her own ends but still. After Abigail is escorted inside, Huesyth and Alana relay all they’ve learned to the officers in hopes that they can find Nicholas. Once they were done, they stepped back into the house and Alana called for the Hobbs girl downstairs. As Huesyth closed the door behind them, he spotted her working her way up the stairs with her hands soaked in blood, breathing heavily.

He moved quickly, grabbing Alana by the side of her head and hitting the other side against the stone wall before she could see the state of the girl. Lowering her to the ground as gently as he could, Abigail stared over at him from the stairs, in shock over the blood or over the knocked out Alana on the floor.

“She’ll be alright,” Huesyth comforted as he rose to his feet and faced her. “Abigail? Show me what happened.”

She was a wide-eyed doe in the headlights, not able to form words yet but she turned stiffly and wandered back down the stairs with Huesyth on her tail. The body of the man from the woods, Nicholas, was laid out on the floor in a pool of blood, a trail of the dark liquid rolling out of the side of his mouth as he stared lifelessly up at the ceiling.

“He was gonna kill me,” Abigail defended softly.

“Was he?” Huesyth doubted, lowering himself down onto one knee as he looked over the corpse and the stab wound in his sternum. Abigail went down onto her knees next to him, face contorted in disbelief over what happened. “This isn’t self-defense, Abigail. You butchered him.”

“I didn’t,” Abigail responded numbly without taking her eyes off the body.

“They will see what you did and they’ll see you as an accessory to the crimes of your father.”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t.”

Huesyth let the situation soak into Abigail’s mind. Let the anxiety begin to set in that there was a chance she might never be believed again, that she may never breathe freely again. Her father’s bloody and bullet-ridden ghost would haunt her forever. “I can help you if you ask me to. At great risk to my career and my life. You have a choice. You can tell them you were defending yourself when you _gutted_ this man… or we can hide the body.”

Abigail stared up at him with the same wide-eyed look, shaking with fear, and seemed to almost want to say no but looking back to the body again made her consider.

 

“No I don’t remember anything,” Alana told as the paramedic pulled away, Jack and Bec on either side of her. “Maybe a blur out of the corner of my eye and then a big, fat cut to black.”

She had a bandage pressed to her forehead and was told she may have a minor concussion but nothing serious enough that could hospitalize her.

“Well, Nicholas Boyle attacked Abigail, you. Struck Dr. Cavalli in the back of the head,” Jack explained.

Alana asked. “Where’s Abigail?”

“Cavalli took her back to the hotel,” Bec cut in.

“She scratched Nicholas Boyle on his way out the back door. The blood on her hands matches the tissue that we pulled from Marissa Schurr’s mouth.”

“And then what, h-he got away?” Alana pressed, brow furrowing in disbelief.

“We’ll catch him one way or another,” Jack added. Bec sighed and slipped out of the ambulance but the agent’s eyes followed him. “Where are you going?”

Hesitantly, Bec looked over at Jack. “I wanna go home.”

He walked off and pretended he couldn’t feel the pity in Jack’s gaze as he moved out of the range of the police lights.

He should’ve hopped on the next plane out of there the second Jack let go of the hold he had on the leash he had placed around Bec’s neck. But instead, he found himself outside of Huesyth’s hotel room without even remembering how he got there. Rationalizing to himself, Bec thought he’d check on the doctor’s wellbeing and then retreat back to his own room to collect his things. A simple but believable plan if he were to have been called out.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he knocked heavily against the hotel room door. Bec could hear movement within the room before the door opened and Huesyth was there, standing in the doorway. Stripped of his overcoat, suit jacket, tie, and vest, he was left in just his dress shirt which was the least amount of layers Bec had ever seen him in.

“Hello, Bec,” Huesyth greeted with a thin smile.

Bec took in a deep breath and tried not to stare. “Good evening, Doctor Cavalli.”

“And what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Huesyth asked.

With a quick inhale, Bec thought of a reasonable answer besides ‘this is just where my legs decided to bring me’. “I... I wanted to make sure you were okay. Alana has a bruise and a concussion so I just...”

Huesyth seemed pleasantly surprised by the answer. “I’m fine, Bec. However, it’s come to my attention that we’ve missed our regular sessions due to this trip. Would you like to come in?”

He probably should’ve said no and left. He should’ve done a lot of things but he felt like a puppet being tugged towards the other man by its strings until he was walking past the doctor and into his room.

Huesyth closed the door behind them, the reverberating sound of it closing sealing the empath’s decision. “How were you after we left the crime scene today?”

“Headaches came back but that’s to be expected. I can’t have you following me around and rubbing my neck all day.” It would have been nice though to have the tight knots under his skin worked out again by the doctor’s expert hands.

Huesyth let out a breathy laugh from his nose. “For actual treatment, I think it will take more than a neck massage.”

Bec hummed as Huesyth leaned back against the provided desk in the hotel room, an air of familiarity and calmness that he had never experienced with the doctor before. He stood casually in the middle of the dim room, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets and for once he didn’t feel judged or out of place. It was just him and Huesyth speaking as humans did.

But despite the comfort, he still felt like he had to ask. “Have you and Jack talked at all after that look you gave him in the cabin?”

Huesyth gave him an odd face. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

“Please, Dr. Cavalli,” Bec laughed. “You looked like you wanted to rip his head off.”

The doctor peered down to the floor and then back to Bec. “I find myself not fond of bullies.”

“You think Jack is a bully?” Bec asked.

Huesyth thought for a moment. “I think he uses your abilities to gain his justice with little concern for the physical tolls it takes on you.”

Bec scoffed. “Just the physical?”

Huesyth offered a brief chuckle. “Well, I am already trying to mend your mental wounds but I can’t necessarily stop your headaches or bloody noses without telling you to stop using your empathy altogether.”

“And what a shame that would be.”

“Indeed. Agent Crawford would be devastated,” Huesyth claimed sarcastically.

That managed to pull a genuine laugh out of Bec, a much-needed one after the day’s events and ran a hand over the back of his neck. He found himself just staring at the doctor like if he looked long enough he could unravel all the secrets Huesyth seemed to have buried. But he never could figure them out.

“Do you have something to say, Bec?” The doctor asked.

Bec shook his head. “No. No, Doctor.”

Huesyth narrowed his eyes and stood straight from where he’d been leaning, taking a few short steps forward into Bec’s space. “Wandering eyes drift where they desire and yours have been on me for quite a while, Bec. Even if you don’t think they are.”

The taller man loomed over him, not threatening but very present, and Bec felt like it was some kind of staring match. If he looked away first the spell would break and he’d escape back into the night and Huesyth would let him forget it.

“You can tell me the truth. I am the one person that you don’t have to lie to for my benefit.”

Bec looked him in the eye, the sincerity of the statement evident. He decided to go with his gut instinct that he’d followed right to Huesyth’s door, he had nothing left to lose. He reached a hand up to Huesyth’s right cheek and pulled his face down to Bec’s own, pressing their lips together, forcefully.

For a moment, a long, regretful moment, Huesyth didn’t move at all. It made something shrivel up in the empath’s chest. Bec was about to pull away, apologize and scamper off back into the dark to hide in shame, never to see the doctor again. He was certain that he must’ve imagined the meeting in his classroom, but then Huesyth responded, strongly.

Bec gasped softly and wrapped his other arm around Huesyth’s neck, pulling the taller man closer. Huesyth placed his arms around Bec’s waist, taking over the kiss. He felt Huesyth run his clever tongue along his lower lip, and let a moan slip out, granting access. Their tongues touched, battled for dominance over the kiss. Bec could feel the doctor’s hand running soothingly over his back and his nails raked against the fabric of his heavy jacket as if pretending it was Bec’s actual skin. Sadly, that was when Bec remembered that he had to breathe.

He pulled back from Huesyth’s addicting lips and panted, pulling needed oxygen into his lungs before they burned. Huesyth still tried to nip at his lover’s lips with the long canines he possessed and Bec had to put a hand over his mouth with a chuckle to keep him from getting what he wanted.

“And what does that tell you, Doctor Cavalli?” Bec asked.

Huesyth huffed, nibbling playfully at the fingers Bec had over his mouth. “You follow your gut instinct more often than I thought.”

Bec swallowed heavily, removing his hand from the taller man’s mouth to run it across Huesyth’s cheek again. “I’m surprised that you didn’t run away this time.”

Something akin to a growl slipped from Huesyth’s lips but he seemed to try and smother it before it could get too loud. “I admit that was rather immature of me. But I was sure when you said we weren’t being professional that that would be the end of any romantic endeavors we might share.”

Huesyth nuzzled his nose against the side of Bec’s face, strangely possessive. But the bravery Bec used to kiss Huesyth to begin was fading and reality was suddenly digging it’s bloody claws into his mind again. “I don’t… I don’t know what I’m doing.”

The doctor let out a deep breath. “Taking what you wanted.”

“I-I don’t know what I want,” Bec stammered, running his hands down the doctor’s chest as he pushed himself away from the other man.

Huesyth let the younger man move away from him despite the fact that it made the beast within him hiss. He knows better; he knows he needs to let Bec breathe and come to terms with his own emotions but the bright red color of his lips was enticing and the blush growing on the tan skin of his face looked _delicious_. Swallowing back his desire for the other man was hard but he did, reeling it back in and pulling the mask of basic humanity back over his face.

“It’s alright, Bec,” Huesyth soothed as if speaking to a spooked animal being backed into a corner.

“I shouldn’t want you,” Bec retorted. “We could get in trouble. You could lose your job.”

The younger man was growing noticeably more panicked, breathing growing more shallow and unsteady. Huesyth couldn’t take Bec looking so shaken and had to step forward, wrapping his arms loosely around the younger man’s middle. The empath stayed completely still before all but melting into the doctor’s grip. Huesyth pet a hand through the wild curls on the top of Bec’s head and the younger man let out a soft sound against the doctor’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Bec,” Huesyth mumbled softly, running the tips of his fingers through a few tangles. “We won’t do anything that will compromise our professional lives and I do not intend on sharing our personal experiences with anyone outside this room. Anything that you wish to be kept secret from the world will have the utmost of my ability to keep it hidden.”

Huesyth pulled Bec back slightly to look him in the eye. The fear was still prevalent and Huesyth ran the back of his hand across the younger man’s cheek, barely grazing against his skin but it was enough to make Bec lean into the touch slightly. Slowly, he moved closer, allowing the other man time to push away if he wanted, and pressed another, gentler kiss against his lips. When he pulled back, Bec sighed softly.

“Do you still desire me, Bec?” Huesyth asked.

He could hear the younger man swallow heavily before mumbling. “Yes.”

 

Huesyth prided himself on being in control of his emotions no matter how extreme they were but the happiness he felt as they returned home from the Hobbs home was more intense then he felt comfortable admitting. It was his own overwhelming feelings that allowed him to not initially notice that other presence in his office as he busied himself with writing notes and letting his mind wander about the certain empath that had caught his attention. But the mezzanine creaked, a minuscule sound but noticeable to his sensitive ears. Then the soft scent lingered down from above him. The sterile smell of the psychiatric facility with hints of the memorable earthiness of the woods surrounding the Hobbs home.

Without looking up from his papers, he greeted pleasantly. “Hello, Abigail.”

A moment of heavy silence before she spoke up. “How did you know it was me?”

“Hospital called,” Huesyth explained. He finished the sentence he was writing before finally looking up at the girl above him. “You climbed over the wall.”

He shut the notebook he was writing in and stood from his chair, circling around his desk to move towards the ladder that led up to the shelves where Abigail was standing. “Where else were you to go? Home is no longer an option. Come down from there.”

She was clearly in distress. Obviously, the weight of the blood on her hands was pulling her down. But she listened to the doctor’s order and made her way down the ladder carefully, taking the offered hand to help herself down the last few steps. Not looking Huesyth in the eye as she passed by him quickly.

“I don’t want to go to sleep,” Abigail muttered, her breath coming out in quick, audible huffs.

Her skittishness was all too familiar. Bec acted nearly the same after shooting Hobbs. Huesyth stood in front of the girl in an attempt to draw her attention back to the real world. “You can’t anticipate your dreams. Can’t block them, can’t repress.”

“I didn’t honor any part of him so it’s just _murder_ , isn’t it?”

“Most would argue self-defense,” Huesyth explained.

“T-Then why not tell the truth?”

“ _Most_ would argue,” Huesyth reiterated more carefully. “There would still be those who would say you were taking after your father.”

Abigail narrowed her eyes at the taller man, almost taken aback by the answer. “You’re glad I killed him.”

He cocked his head a bit. “What would be the alternative? That he killed you?”

“I didn’t know if he was going to.”

“ _No_ , you don’t.”

Abigail adjusted her stance like she was prepared to run as she seemingly came to a realization. “You’re the one who called the house. You talked to my dad before. Wha-What did you say to him?”

“A simple conversation, ascertaining if he was home for an interview. Then why not tell the truth?”

She swallowed heavily. “I think you called the house as a serial killer. Just like my dad.”

Huesyth looked in her eyes and could see just why Bec and even Alana wanted to save her so badly. A girl living in the shadow of her own father’s evil, knowing unconsciously just what he was doing to the girls that looked so much like her.

Huesyth pitied her.

But he could also see so much potential for her.

“I’m nothing like your dad. I made a mistake. Something easily misconstrued. Not unlike yourself,” He let her think for a moment and realize her options were far more limited than she thought. “I’ll keep your secret.”

Abigail looked up at him again and raised her eyebrows at him. “...And I’ll keep yours.”

“No more climbing walls, Abigail,” Huesyth warned. He walked away from her and back to his desk but he could tell that her expression had dropped once he’d taken his eyes off her. She’d figured out just what she had just done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NBC's Hannibal, nor its script and characters, and I don't make any money off of this fic. I rewrote it for me and a friend of mine purely for fun as a way to explore the events but with our original characters and just decided to start posting it.
> 
> New chapter every Wednesday!!


	4. “Oeuf”

**BALTIMORE, MARYLAND**

“Sometimes… at night I would leave all of the lights on in my house, and… walk across the field,” Bec explained, his eyes shut despite him trying to keep himself awake as the sure fingers pet through his hair. “When I look back from a distance, the house is like a lighthouse guiding me through a storm. A clear destination through the dark. It’s really the only time I feel safe.”

Huesyth made a soft sound above him but made no move to dislodge the empath from his comfortable position with his head on the doctor’s lap as he laid across the chaise longue in the doctor’s office.

“You stood in the penetrating silence of Garret Jacob Hobbs’ home, the very spaces he once moved through. Tell me, Bec… did they speak to you?”

At the reminder, Bec’s face scrunched up as the memories of crashing through Hobbs’ kitchen, his gun drawn and his hands already slick with blood, flashed in front of his eyelids. “With noise and clarity.”

“Your lighthouse wasn’t there to guide you. You were lost at sea but you could sense his madness like a bloodhound,” Huesyth added.

“I tried so hard to know Garret Jacob Hobbs. To _see_ him clearly.” The gunshots still rang fresh in Bec’s ears and he adjusted his jaw in discomfort. “Past the slides and viles, beyond the lines of the police reports, between the pixels of all those printed faces of sad, dead girls. I wanted to know who he truly was.”

“How did you feel seeing Marissa Schurr impaled in his antler room?” Huesyth asked, his fingers smoothing back the curly bangs away from Bec’s face.

The image appeared in Bec’s mind’s eye, a hauntingly staged form. A young woman mounted on the antlers in the shadows of the cabin’s upper loft to become another taxidermied animal on display in Hobbs’ nest.

Softly, Bec forced out through almost clenched teeth. “Guilty.”

“Because you couldn’t save her,” Huesyth said surely.

“Because I felt like I killed her…” Bec asserted before grinding out. “I got _so_ close to him. Sometimes… I felt like we were doing the same things at different times of day… like I was eating… or showering or sleeping at the same time he was.”

The hand in Bec’s hair slowed. “Even after he was dead?”

“...Even after he was dead.”

“Like… you were becoming him.”

He opened his eyes finally and looked up at the man above him. Huesyth waited for some form of a response. “I know who I am. I’m not Garret Jacob Hobbs, Dr. Cavalli.”

Huesyth’s lips quirked up slightly. “No, Bec. No, you are not.”

He leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss against Bec’s forehead.

 

Bec scanned over the rotting food set up on the table, witnessing the maggots wriggling about inside the graying mess. The family portraits that were hung on the walls of the dining room had dry blood spattered across the smiling faces. Each decorative plate at the table had a dead body’s head plunged into it, flies swarming around them.

The pendulum swung and took away the signs of rot, decay, or graphic bloodshed, _leaving a terrified but living family sitting stiffly at their clean dinner table awaiting their meal to be served._

“The table has been set. Family dinner. I wasn’t invited, but I take my seat at the head of the table. _My_ seat. _My_ place setting next to Mrs. Turner. I am the guest of honor. Nobody has taken a bite of their food.”

_The killer leaned over the table, pointing a stern finger to the young daughter to Mrs. Turner’s right. “If you don’t eat your greens, you won’t get any dessert.”_

_The daughter quickly stuffed a stalk of broccoli into her mouth without taking her wide eyes off of the killer. Slamming his hand roughly against the table, the killer shouted. “No one leaves the table!_ All afraid to move, even the little ones behave themselves. I brought my own family to this home invasion. Controlling the Turners with threats of violence... threats that turn to action.”

_Three gunshots went off before the killer’s eyes and now the husband and two daughters were face down in their plates, blood beginning to pool in them. Mrs. Turner continued to stare at the killer._

“The Turner family is executed simultaneously with the exception of Mrs. Turner who dies last. This is my design. _I_ am the one who shoots Mrs. Turner.”

_The killer pulls up the gun resting in his lap and shot the mother in the middle of her forehead. Her blood and brains splattered back against the family photos before her head dropped into her own plate setting._

Bec could tell that his arm was shaking. He opened his eyes only to see the rot again, his hand held out as if in a position to shoot the mother himself. FBI personnel could be heard wandering about the house and scanning for evidence.

“What did you see, Bec?” Jack asked from the doorway to the empath’s side.

Bec pulled his gloved hand back quickly, licking at the droplet of blood that had slid from his nose to his lips. “Family values.”

Jack walked forward, dispensing a tissue from his suit jacket pocket which Bec accepted and dabbed away the blood. “Who’s family values?”

 

**WOLF TRAP, VIRGINIA**

The drive to Bec’s far out home was quiet but serene. Huesyth could understand why a social recluse like the empath would enjoy living out there.

The doctor promised Bec that he would look after the empath’s many reptilian friends but probably a little too quickly as Bec went on to explain that only four out of the seven snakes he possessed were nonvenomous. Some of the more dangerous ones being a king cobra, a timber rattlesnake, and a Northern copperhead. Bec made sure to tell the doctor that he didn’t need to feed any of them however and he really just needed to adjust their lighting as Bec had already watered and fed them before leaving.

With an inhale of the fresh air, Huesyth exited his Bentley and headed up the driveway of Bec’s home. He peered through the windows into the living room before he trekked up to the front door to use the key he was given to unlock it and step inside. The open blinds allowed natural light to flood into the small, cozy home and immediately, Huesyth was drawn to the little, dusty piano in the corner where he tapped at a few of the keys. The sound was brilliant but again, Huesyth’s attention was pulled to the shelves against the wall to his far left, more specifically, the framed photos set up between the sets of books.

The frames were simple and probably more used just to protect the pictures’ quality but the photos had interesting contents. One of the most notable photos was a beautifully happy young Bec smiling big alongside a far more stoic appearing older boy that looked strikingly like the empath himself but with lighter skin, icy blue eyes, and blonde hair. On Bec’s other side was a younger girl with a big smile, ink black, curly hair and a missing right canine tooth. The photo above it was another of Bec but as a teen with more of a lopsided smirk and slightly sweaty hair that clung to his forehead, dressed in a leotard and tights while holding a trophy with a dancer statue atop it.

Huesyth would have never guessed that Bec, even when he was young, would’ve liked dancing or ballet especially enough to compete to win awards. But it seemed as he grew older, his empathy grew more powerful and that’s why he began withdrawing from his personal life. The doctor wondered about the other children in the first photo alongside Bec, the ones that seemingly made Bec so incredibly happy. However, there weren’t any snapshots that may have given clues to Bec’s parents, most likely because they were the ones always taking the pictures of their son.

Moving away from the photos, he finally went into the side room that housed the terrariums of Bec’s beloved snakes. He moved forward towards the nearest tank in the middle of the room to read the name tag taped to the glass only to have the occupant of said tank strike the glass in an attempt to sink its fangs into the intruder. The loud thud of its body hitting the side of the tank made Huesyth flinch backward away from it. Immediately, the snake drew back into a coil, hissing dangerously at the doctor as if to warn that it will strike again. Huesyth looked back to the name tag and read the name ‘Sunday’ in block letters.

He remembered vaguely that Bec had said Sunday was a rather moody serpent compared to the others and he would try to act tough to him but there was a stark difference between being moody and outright violent.

“Rude, little beast…” The doctor murmured.

Questioningly, Huesyth narrowed his eyes at the serpent who continued to hiss angrily at him. Instead of bothering with it, he adjusted the light setup above its tank and moved onto the next. The others were far less confrontational, choosing to either stare blankly at the stranger or curl up in the far corners of their terrariums to get away from him. They all acted far more human to Huesyth and it certainly was a little eerie. They seemed to know exactly what was happening around them and were thrown off by the fact that their real father wasn’t there doing the work.

After he did what Bec had asked of him, Huesyth took his time to explore around the house some more while he had the chance to. He noticed that despite Bec’s usually disheveled appearance, his home was almost impeccably tidy. Slightly dusty but organized in its own way that seemed to match Bec’s more calmed mindset. The doctor pulled open one of the top drawers on the dresser in the empath’s room to see a line of old white shirts, one on top of the other and neatly rolled pairs of socks of the same color in rows of two right next to them. It was rather telling in its own way.

Back in the living area, he had a desk in a corner, in front of one of the picturesque windows that looked out over Bec’s front porch and the large expanse of the yard. A magnifying glass was set up to enhance the details of an unfinished fly fishing lure surrounded by hooks, thread, pliers, and feathers. A rack of more finished lures sat behind it.

Huesyth sat down at the station, admiring the delicate handiwork. Many people would probably not think Bec isn’t capable of such delicate work and even Huesyth will admit he was surprised by the things he found in the home. The doctor moved the magnifying glass out of the way, taking up the last of the feathers and tied it off on to the end of the fly with the thread, knotting it and clipping off the extra length of the string. His surgical precision allowed little room for mistake.

Having completed his work, he removed it from its holder only to slowly press the pad of his thumb against the pointed barb of the hook, keeping the pressure on it until a droplet of blood was drawn. Without lingering on the slight pain, Huesyth kissed away the lone drop from his thumb.

 

**STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT**

The flash of Jimmy’s camera as he took photos of the dining table of death was noticeably bright out of the corner of Bec’s eye, but he kept his eyes trained on the family photos still. It was always the family photos that made his stomach twist the most.

Jack moved in to break the silence of the team working around Bec’s still form. “Alright, Karen and Roger Turner. They were childhood sweethearts and owned a successful real estate business. Pillars of the community, three children.”

“Minus one,” Bec added from the look of the pictures.

“Yes. A, uh, a son… Jesse,” Jack said after checking his notes. Bec noticed the photo of the only young boy present in the family. Dark, short hair with round glasses and a smile of crooked baby teeth. Styled in a pale blue dress shirt that his mother probably chose for him specifically for family picture day. “Disappeared last year. The last confirmed sighting had him boarding an RV at a rest stop on Route 47. Possible runaway, possible abduction.”

“Or both,” Bec offered again.

“When misery rains, it pours,” Jack expressed.

“False faces in family portraits. Layers and layers of lies, betrayed by…” The younger man stared into the face of the photo of the young boy. “A sad glint in the child’s eyes.”

He could tell that Jack narrowed his eyes at the empath as he rambled but Jimmy commented from behind his camera. “Norman Rockwell with a bullet.”

Continuing undeterred, Jack asked. “Any signs of forced entry?”

Beverly straightened up from where she was dusting for prints on an old glass of orange juice to answer. “No broken windows or torn screens. All sealed up tight.”

“Then they probably rang the front door,” Jack explained, motioning towards the door with his hand.

“I got bullet holes on the upper sections of the wall, and again over here,” Beverly addressed, motioning to each area of the dining room as she pointed them out.

“Okay. Pull the slugs for ballistics,” Jack ordered.

“Elevated termination points match for the scene with these bodies,” Brian began, moving towards the table to indicate what he meant. “Angular cranial impact, coupled with… acute exit wounds, conical spray. The shooter went low to high, probably crouching.”

“When was Jesse abducted?” Bec asked again.

Jack’s eyes went back to the empath. “Uh, a little over a year ago.”

Nodding in understanding, Bec looked back to the bloodstained photo of the mother and Jesse. The boy was laid across her lap, laughing with a toy octopus in his hand as his mother kissed his forehead.

“ **Do you think the boy had something to do with it?** ” A now familiar chilly voice hissed softly into Bec’s ear, making the empath flinch.

The snake’s tail curled loosely around the empath’s neck, keeping its hold light but ever present and threatening. Bec couldn't answer the snake verbally and instead hummed quietly in agreement in case it would attack him for staying silent.

“ **Do you really think a boy can gun down his own family in cold blood?** ” The snake asked. Dejectedly, Bec sighed because he knew the answer was most likely yes.

 

After his adventure around Bec’s home, Huesyth returned to his office to finish his notes on patients. However, it seemed that much like when Abigail was hiding from her actions, he wasn’t going to be getting them done any time soon. Knocks emanated from his office door, he checked his watch to see if it was time for his next appointment already but his next one wasn’t for another hour or so. Moments later, he was opening the door to find Alana Bloom waiting for him on the other side with a cheeky grin gracing her lips.

“Hi,” She greeted nonchalantly.

Playing along, Huesyth gave her a pointed look. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Do you have a beer?”

They smiled at each other and Huesyth moved aside to let her enter the office as well, closing the door behind her. He brought her the glass of beer that she had requested, pouring himself a glass of wine along the way and as he passed the glass off, he asked. “Interesting day with Abigail?”

Huesyth took his seat next to her on the futon and she sighed wearily. “Yeah, with grief work. Trauma, intervention. It’s all on course. I think she might be wrestling with a low-grade depression.”

Alana sipped from her glass, avoiding eye contact and Huesyth questioned. “Just her?”

“Nothing wrong with a little self-medication…right, Doctor?” He tipped his glass to her in agreement before taking a drink. “Professional neutrality be damned. It’s so hard to watch a bright young girl go so adrift.”

“Perhaps it’s time Abigail is released from clinical treatment,” Huesyth expressed as he lowered his glass.

“Released where? Back into the wild?” Alana questioned.

“Spending each day immersed in tragedy may be doing more harm to her than good. She should be out in the world. Finding her footing to give her the confidence to move forward.”

“Abigail is in no condition to tackle real-world issues. Where’s she gonna live?”

Huesyth cut in. “I am _not_ suggesting abandonment.”

Alana met eyes with him as if she could see what he was planning. “Huesyth, this is a girl who was _very_ attached to her parents. You stepping in as a surrogate would only be a crutch. I think Abigail needs to figure things out for herself in a safe… _clinical_ environment. And that will give her the confidence to move forward.”

Though he hesitated slightly, wanting to keep arguing, Huesyth knew he wouldn’t be getting anywhere in convincing her.

“I defer to the passion of my esteemed colleague,” Huesyth relented.

He held his glass out again and they toasted before taking another sip.

 

“I’m glad we didn’t have guns in my house,” Brian quipped as he leaned back against one of the walls in the B.A.U. morgue. “I would’ve shot my sisters just to get them out of the bathroom.”

Scanning the covered bodies, Jack stood like a demanding father at the front of the room, presiding over his favorite children as they explained what they’d learned in school that day. Bec stayed slightly farther back than the rest of the scientists, leaning against one of the walls.

“I liked having a big family,” Beverly interjected.

“My parents gave me a gift. A twin,” Jimmy said bitterly. “Who wouldn’t want two of me?”

Brian looked back at the empath standing in silence, motioning to him with his hand. “Let me guess… only child.”

“Why do you say that?” Bec monotoned.

“Because family friction is usually a catalyst for personality development,” Brian said surely.

An odd remark but Bec raised an eyebrow at the scientist before correcting him. “Older half-brother and younger half-sister. Both lived with me.”

“Ah, then which parent took off?” Brian asked.

Slightly insulted, Bec squinted at the other man but before he could respond, Beverly cut in to probably keep Brian from digging into the empath anymore. “I was the oldest so… all the friction rolled downhill.”

Jack moved farther into the room after reading through the files they had on the family members. “Yes, all the intention and responsibility is heaved on firstborn children. It’s supposed to prepare them for… success in the future.”

Sarcastically, Beverly added. “My baby sister got away with murder. She had them all fooled.”

“I thought middles were the problem children,” Jimmy inquired.

“Middle is the sweet spot,” Brian corrected.

“Always trying to figure out where they fit in?” Bec spoke up, walking closer to where the rest were gathered around. “Can’t say I ever felt like I was in the ‘sweet spot’.”

As he approached, Jack handed over one of the crime scene photos he’d been looking at to Bec. “All the victims have defensive wounds except for Mrs. Turner.”

The picture Bec was given was a close up of Mrs. Turner, her head facing to the side instead of directly into the plate. Her face was revealed, a sense of calm immortalized on her dead features. Of understanding. “There’s forgiveness.”

“What kind of victim forgives their killer the moment before they’re about to be killed?” Jack asked.

Bec looked down at the woman’s body laid out on the table in front of them, a plastic sheet covering her pale form. “A mother.”

He matched eyes with Jack from across the body and the agent looked down solemnly.

 

“Tell me about your mother,” Huesyth requested with a small smile.

“That is some lazy psychiatry, Dr. Cavalli,” Bec defended. “Low hanging fruit.”

Huesyth tipped his head to the side slightly as he stared at the younger man in the chair across from him. “I suspect that fruit is very difficult to reach.”

Bec sighed softly. “So is my mother considering I... don’t technically have one.”

Taken aback, Huesyth raised an eyebrow at the younger man. “A rather interesting place to start.”

With a light scoff, Bec evaded the eye contact he’d been holding with the doctor, looking down at his hands in his lap. “I legally have three fathers. Two are my biological parents and the third is my stepfather. One of my dads had a son in another relationship who lived with us and my other dad had a daughter with my stepfather. Two half-siblings who might as well have been my full blooded siblings.”

“Were you close with your family?” Huesyth asked. “Your parents or your siblings?”

Bec paused briefly before relenting. “My older half-brother is named Amaund. He’s stoic, used to be selectively mute so I never was that close to him. My younger half-sister is named Sofia. We were and are still very close. I helped her with an alcohol problem when we were young and dumb and she keeps me from becoming a hermit as we get older.”

The doctor’s eyes noticeably flicked down slightly before returning to the empath’s face. “How did you get that scar across your neck, Bec?”

The younger man huffed softly. “By being an idiot. I ran face first into a farming scythe at the ranch we lived at. Got stuck underneath it and had to have my dad save me before I sliced a vein open.”

“What about the other scars like the ones on your arm? I assume there are many more,” Huesyth asked, motioning with his head to Bec’s covered wrist.

“I used to sleepwalk a lot when I was a kid and it led to me accidentally hurting myself a lot. Scared the hell out of my parents all the time because of it.”

“Are you still in contact with your parents?”

He could have answered but Bec narrowed his eyes at the other man instead and straightened his position to almost mimic his doctor. “Tell me about _your_ mother, Dr. Cavalli.”

There was a flicker of something dark across the older man’s face that was quickly buried before Huesyth looked off as if thinking. “My mother committed suicide when I was very young and my father was killed when I was twelve. My older brother, Delmar, was charged for the crime and kept in a juvenile detention center in Italy for many years. I was the proverbial orphan until I was later adopted by my Uncle Alessio.”

Bec’s cold exterior seemed to melt slightly, understanding Huesyth a bit more in his opinion. “You have being an orphan in common with Abigail Hobbs.”

“I think you’ll soon discover that you and I have much in common with Abigail. She has already demonstrated an aptitude for the psychological.”

The empath rubbed the palms of his hands against his pants. “There was always something so foreign about family. I never connected to the concept.”

“But you’ve created a family for yourself beyond the one you were born to,” Huesyth reminded.

Bec realized the taller man must’ve been referencing the snakes and gave a soft chuckle. “I’ve created a family of pet store serpents, and thank you for taking care of them while I was away.”

Huesyth paused slightly. “I was referring to Abigail.” Almost embarrassed, Bec looked away from him again. “Tell me about the Turner family. Were they affluent? Well to do?”

“They lived like they had money,” Bec noted.

“Did your family have money, Bec?”

“We were well-off. One dad is a now retired Catholic priest, one is a Brigadier General in the United States Army, and my stepdad is a mechanic.”

“A Catholic priest with two husbands and three children?” Huesyth asked with a furrowed brow.

Bec shrugged. “I didn't understand it either. We moved around a lot because of the General duties before ending up on a ranch in New Mexico for good when my parents met my stepdad.”

“Always the new boy at school, always the stranger,” Huesyth observed.

“Sure, for a while. Never really got along with other people though even when I wasn’t the new boy.”

The doctor asked. “What grudge was Mrs. Turner’s killer harboring against her?”

“...Motherhood.”

“Not true motherhood,” Huesyth shook his head. “A perversion of it.”

 

It was the next night when Huesyth dished a generous helping of the sausage onto Jack’s plate. The agent lets his lungs fill with the delectable aroma. “A modified Boudin Noir from Ali-Bab’s Gastronomie Pratique,” Huesyth explained.

The doctor took his seat at the other end of the table as Jack began cutting into his food with a smile. “You promised to deliver your wife to my dinner table.”

“We’ll have to polish up our act. We can’t have you diagnosing our marital problems all in one fell swoop,” Jack looked down at the piece of cooked meat he had skewered on his fork. “What am I about to put in my mouth?”

“It’s rabbit,” Huesyth said simply as he too cut into his food.

With a gentle chuckle, the agent joked. “Well, he should have hopped faster.”

The two men laughed together and Huesyth agreed. “Yes, he should have. But, fortunately for us, he did not.”

The man they were consuming hadn’t been terribly fast, he had been so panicked that he kept tripping over his own feet even on the solid ground of the woods he was trying to run through. An easy hunt.

“Mmm mmm,” Jack hummed as he chewed the piece but his mood quickly seemed to sour. “Our friend Bec seemed haunted today.”

Detached and evasive? Yes. Haunted? No. “We don’t know the nightmares that lay coiled beneath Bec’s pillow.”

“Children killing children shouldn’t be... that unfamiliar a notion to Bec.”

Huesyth severely doubted that. “You still suspect Abigail Hobbs is guilty of her father’s crimes.”

“Perhaps the nightmare under Bec’s pillow… is that he was wrong about her innocence.”

“Children transport us back to our own childhoods. When he looks at Abigail, Bec may feel the tug of life before the FBI and before you. Simpler times that are steaming behind him like an anchor in heavy weather. He needs an anchor, Jack.”

 _He needs a lighthouse,_ Huesyth thought but didn’t say. _A guide._

But Jack sighed because he knew somehow that Huesyth was right.

  


**RESTON, VIRGINIA**

Rushing in behind the SWAT team did nothing to stifle the scent of death that wafted right into their faces from the large home. The team coughed through it, covering their noses and mouths with their arms to try and ward off the offending odor but they soon found themselves at the epicenter of it.

The living room, unreasonably decorated for the Christmas holiday with artificially frosted windows and a near ceiling-high tree, held the answer to the smell with scattered bodies among the brightly wrapped presents. A mother, father, and two children still dressed in their pajamas and robes around the tree laid long dead with bullets through their brains. Their skin was drained of all color besides ashen gray and a touch of green. A scorched black corpse was bent into a ball and forced into the fireplace as well. They had all been there for far longer than even the last family.

“ **Certainly a tragedy,** ” The voice whispered without a hint of remorse. Though a shiver of fear went through him, Bec didn’t even bother feeding into its games.

 

It wasn’t until the next day when they completed the autopsies on the new family they had tracked down and they all found themselves again standing around the plastic covered bodies in the morgue that they were able to give a reasonable conclusion.

Jack marched up the row between two of the autopsy tables, arms crossed over his chest as he scanned them with a careful eye. “Mr. Frist and the children killed first which saved Mrs. Frist for last. Same as with the Turners.”

“But not exactly the same,” Bec told from the counter he was sitting upon. “Something went wrong.”

“There wasn’t any presents under the tree for Mrs. Frist,” Beverly commented.

He had noticed that as well and Bec added. “He took her presents and her motherhood.”

“Shooting her once wasn’t enough,” Brian cut in as he motioned to the wounds inflicted on the mother’s head. “The first bullet traveled beneath her scalp… to its final resting place at the base of her neck.”

“And it still didn’t kill her,” Jack snapped, obviously horrified by the notion.

“Hydrostatic shock of the shell hitting the skull would have caused brain damage,” Beverly explained after Brian’s findings.

“That caused her body to go into convulsions,” Bec confirmed. “Violent ones.”

Brian motioned to the body again, this time with his hand made into the tell-tale shape of a gun. “He shot her again to put her out of her misery but with a different gun.”

“So someone else shot Connor’s mom the second time,” Jimmy concluded.

Turning from them, Jack lifted the plastic sheet off of the burnt skeletal figure, shriveled into a compact position. “So who is our additional corpse in the fireplace?”

“I’d say it’s Connor Frist,” Bec sighed. “He was prepped to shoot his mother but not to watch her suffer like that.”

“Connor couldn’t bottle his panic so he got shot too,” Jack said as he looked back to Jimmy.

With a dismissive wave of his hand, Bec huffed. “Whoever shot him… _disowned_ him.”

 

It was between classes, some of the only time Bec had to himself anymore when he wasn’t at home. The lecture hall was empty and for once quiet. He hears the lecture hall door open and knows someone entered but he was too busy studying the pictures of the two boys on his laptop that seemed to be at the center of these murders.

The figure paused in the doorway but continued forward as it spoke calmly to him. It was Beverly’s voice. She came to stand beside him as he sat at his desk but he really wasn’t paying attention to what she was saying, let alone looking in her direction. “Hmm?”

She peered over his shoulder at the screen he was staring at so intently. “What are you looking at?”

“Both of these kids are short, underweight for their age,” Bec pointed out, narrowing his eyes as if that would help him see more.

“You think it’s a connection?” Beverly asked, leaning on her arms against his desk.

The empath shrugged slightly. “I’m thinking possible ADHD diagnosis for both boys. Ritalin, Focalin, any medication containing Methylphenidate can affect appetite and slow long-term growth in kids.”

Beverly nodded as Bec ran a hand over his face. “Another thing about Willard Wigan… he had a lonely childhood. He used his tiny sculptures as an escape.”

“Who’s Willard Wigan?”

Mouth slightly agape, Beverly stared at the man before laughing breathily. “Price got a hit on the ballistics he’s been running on the two family murders. The bullet that put Mrs. Frist out of her misery matches three that were used in a murder in Bangor, Maine a year ago. Mother of a thirteen-year-old boy who was shot to death with her own gun.”  
Bec leaned back in his chair and gave a grave sigh.

 

“C.J. Lincoln disappeared six months before his mother was murdered and he hasn’t been seen since,” Jack reminded. The team sat around his desk with a computer that had C.J.’s missing person poster displayed on it. “He had no traits of sociopathic behavior. No shoplifting, no malicious destruction of property, no assault, and no battery. He was kind to animals, for God’s sake.”

The empath sighed as he relented. “The gun says we are looking at the Peter Pan to our Lost Boys.”

“But it takes a sophisticated level of manipulation to convince young boys to kill their families in cold blood.”

“Kindness to animals doesn’t suggest that particular kind of sophistication,” Bec assured.

“Well, he’s older, he’s been out in the world. Maybe he picked up a few things,” Jack assumed vaguely.

“ **Maybe he’s learned to use his status to scare the other boys into submission,** ” The snake suddenly hissed again, its pitch black body and tail coiling tightly around Bec’s left arm as it hung from his right shoulder to ensure that it wouldn’t fall. “ **He can’t be the leader. There must be someone else, someone older, pulling the strings.** ”

Bec raised his eyebrows and couldn’t understand what the snake was trying to explain to him. But the suggestion wasn’t something he could immediately disregard.

 

Huesyth opened the door again and Bec stood from one of the waiting room chairs.

“Good evening, Bec,” Huesyth greeted. “Please come in.”

With an air of irritation, the empath moved passed the doctor and into the office with his bag in hand.

“Has Christmas come early?” The doctor asked once Bec tossed his bag onto the chaise longue only to have the paper wrapped present slip out of the top of the bag. Huesyth motioned to the gift as Bec began taking off his heavy jacket. “Or late?”

“It was for Abigail.”

“Was?” Huesyth asked.

“I thought better of it. I wasn’t thinking straight. I-I was upset when I bought it.” Bec rambled as he threw his jacket on top of his bag as well, running his hands down his face.

“What is it?”

“Some fly tying gear. Other fishing stuff,” Bec answered, fiddling with a pen he picked up from the doctor’s desk.

Huesyth straightened up and took his seat in his regular chair during their sessions, crossing his legs as he waited for the empath to join him. “You’re teaching her how to fish. You know her father taught her how to hunt.”

“Yeah, that’s why I thought better of it,” Bec said flatly, putting the pen back down.

“Are you feeling paternal, Bec?”

The empath turned back to the doctor. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Huesyth answered immediately. “But our good friend Dr. Bloom has advised us against taking too personal an interest in Abigail’s welfare. Tell me, why are you so angry?”

Bec paced around, too upset to sit or look anyone in the eye, especially Huesyth. He snapped over his shoulder. “I’m angry about these boys. I’m angry because I know that when I find them, I can’t help them after what they’ve done. I can’t- I can’t give them back what they just _gave_ away.”

“Family,” The doctor said simply.

“Yeah,” Bec answered, more softly, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “We call them ‘The Lost Boys’.”

“Abigail is lost, too. And perhaps it’s our responsibility, yours and mine, to help her find her way back.”

Bec sighed softly, shaking his head slightly. “‘Yours and mine’… we’re together in this?”

“I would think so,” Huesyth responded. “Are we not?”

“It just seems that since our little interaction in your hotel room, you haven’t exactly _verbally_ acknowledged anything else about us.”

His expression noticeably warmed as Huesyth raised an eyebrow at the empath with a small, amused smile. “I thought my actions spoke for themselves.”

With a raised eyebrow, Bec finally turned to ask. “Are you talking about how you nearly stuck your tongue down my throat in my classroom?”

For once, Huesyth was the one to avert his gaze instead of Bec. “I will admit that my actions then were a bit… unthought out.”

That apparently wasn’t the answer Bec was looking for. “Do you regret it?”

The doctor met eyes with him again. “Do you?”

Firmly, Bec shook his head. “No, no. We’re not doing the therapy thing anymore, Dr. Cavalli. I’m trying to ask you a question.”

“And what question would that be, Bec?” Huesyth asked, annoyingly calm.

The empath huffed loudly. “Are we- Is this a thing?”

“‘A thing’?” Huesyth repeated. From Bec’s experience, it seemed like he was trying to get a reaction out of the younger man.

Bec groaned loudly, running a hand over his stubbled jaw before flopping himself down into the seat across from the doctor’s. “Are we in a relationship now, Doctor? A romantic one?”

The taller man paused for a moment, just staring at the empath that was fidgeting uncomfortably in the other chair. He answered softly. “I would like us to be.”

Surprised by the answer, Bec raised his eyebrows. “I-... I would like us to be as well.”

Both of them went quiet for a moment and Huesyth enjoyed the blush that slowly rose on the younger man’s cheeks the longer the doctor didn’t respond. Huesyth decided to take pity on the man, however, and smiled. “Then I’d say yes. We are in a romantic relationship.”

Bec made a breathy laugh, rubbing at his eyes with his hands. “God, you make it sound so clinical.”

Huesyth laughed a little as well. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to sound impersonal.”

“It’s fine, Doctor,” Bec eased with a smile.

“You are allowed to call me Huesyth, Bec,” The doctor said. “We’re in a relationship now after all.”

Bec smirked slightly and raised another eyebrow at the taller man. “That might take some time to get used to.”

“We have all the time in the world,” Huesyth said.

It seemed to ease the turmoil that was constantly on the verge of boiling of over in the empath’s mind. The tightness in his shoulders uncoiled and he noticeably relaxed back into his chair. Bec seemed happy, not as happy as he was in those photos Huesyth saw, but it was a start.

 

Abigail let the book she had been skimming through fall closed, her legs kicked up behind her as she laid across her stomach on the twin sized bed she was given at the hospital. She seemed like a normal teenage girl studying in her college dorm for a big test but the scarf around her neck hid dark secrets. Something even someone as apathetic as Abigail seemed to be couldn’t shake off.

“I don’t think I’m allowed to leave because of the whole fence climbing,” The young girl said doubtfully. “They don’t really trust me anymore.”

Huesyth was leaned forward in his chair with his elbows resting on his knees so that he could be closer to her level as they spoke. “I’ve made arrangements. You could say that I’m one of your guardians.”

“Where are we going?” Abigail asked, eyebrows drawn together.

“My home. I thought you might appreciate it if I cooked for you and you don’t have to worry. I’ll have you back before bed.”

“Can’t I spend the night there?” Abigail pled, maybe far too quickly but dialed it back and continued. “I don’t like sleeping here. I think it’s been making the bad dreams worse.”

“You have to sleep in your own bed,” Huesyth reminded.

“This isn’t my bed,” She reminded solemnly.

He cocked his head to the side slightly. “Tell me about your bad dreams.”

Much like Bec, Abigail averted her gaze, picking at the spine of her book to give her hands something to do. “I-I had one where… Marissa kept sending me pictures of Nicholas Boyle, gutted.”

“Crime scene photos of how you left him.”

Abigail looked up at him briefly, seemingly horrified about being reminded of her actions and sighed heavily. “Even though she’s dead, I’m afraid that Marissa’s gonna tell everyone I killed him and they’ll think I’m just like my dad. I can’t really talk about this stuff in group.”

The girl sat up from her lying down position as a wave of noticeable nausea began to consume her. “You don’t have that luxury, Abigail. Neither of us do.”

She nodded sternly. “I guess I just have to get used to lying.”

Abigail stood from the bed, tossing the book on the desk and pulling up her jacket from the chair. The doctor stood as well, moving the chair he was sitting in back to corner as he folded his overcoat over his forearm. “You only have to lie about one thing. And when you’re with me, you don’t have to lie at all.”

Abigail shrugged on the heavy jacket and tugged her long, straight, dark hair over her shoulders to sit above the cloth. “In the dream, I always wonder how I could live with myself knowing what I did.”

Huesyth began moving toward the door. “And when you’re awake?”

She paused, thoughtful, before slipping her hands into her jacket pockets and following after the doctor to the door. “When I’m awake, I know that I can live with myself. And I’ll just get used to what I did. Does that make me a sociopath?”

Huesyth studied her with a swell of paternal pride. She knew she could survive with her actions even if her unconscious mind wanted her to feel guilty about something she couldn’t control. “No, it doesn’t. It makes you a survivor.”

He opened the door for her and she moved out of the room, waiting for him on the other side as he shut the door behind them.

 

Tomatoes roasted as Huesyth cut potatoes in perfect half-inch cubes, tossing them into a pan with whole unpeeled garlic cloves and thyme. He ground fresh meat, which was also tossed into the sizzling pan as Abigail looked on from the other side of the counter.

He began peeling whole potatoes with a knife as he finally broke the silence again. “It’s important to know when it’s time to turn the page. Have you thought about applying for schools?”

“My dad killed girls at all the schools that I applied to,” Abigail reminded.

The doctor blinked. “Perhaps that can wait then.”

“I think I want to work for the FBI,” Abigail revealed.

The human mask on Huesyth’s face cracked into a warm grin. “I would certainly feel safer if you were in the FBI… protecting my interests.”

“They wouldn’t let me though, would they?” Abigail asked. “Because of what my dad did.”

“There will be tests for you but I’m sure they would only deny you if they believed that’s in your nature, too.”

With a shrug, Abigail concluded. “Nature versus nurture.”

Huesyth looked at her. “You are not your father’s daughter. Not anymore.” She averted her gaze again, falling silent, and Huestyth leaned against the counter he was working on. “What if it weren’t so painful anymore to think of your father? Have you ever tried Psilocybin?”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Mushrooms? That’s what’s in the tea?” Abigail motioned with her head back to the clear tea kettle boiling, mushrooms bound like flower buds in the colored water.

“Yes,” He confirmed, walking around the counter to the other side to remove the kettle from the heat and allowing it a moment to cool. “There are those psychiatrists who believe that altered states could be used to access traumatic memories.”

“I have all the access to traumatic memories I need. Having regrets allow unlimited access,” Abigail said bluntly as she followed his movements.

“Which is why we need to supplement them with positive associations. No more bad dreams, Abigail, and certainly no more regrets.”

He poured her a serving into an awaiting teacup and she seemed taken aback by his boldness. “You want me to do drugs?”

“I want you to do this drug. With my supervision. Where it’s safe,” He offered the cup to her. “Do you trust me?”

She sighed and seemed to guess that she had nothing left to lose, taking the cup from his hands and taking a hesitant sip.

 

“Bangor, Maine. Stamford, Connecticut, and recently Reston, Virginia,” With each town listed, Jack pointed his laser pointer to the matching location on the map pinned to his office wall.

Jimmy estimated. “This places each of the murders approximately five hundred miles from the one before it.”

“Right,” Jack agreed.

“You’re trying to establish a geographical pattern when the murders were weeks apart,” Brian chimed in, motioning theatrically with his hands.

“Other patterns too,” Bec cut in without even looking at Brian, sitting on a file cabinet against the wall behind the other members of the team. “Our shooters are minors. Middle children from traditional affluent families.”

“We know they’re moving South,” Jack said. “So that means we wanna cover the border of North Carolina and Georgia. We need to get files on every missing boy within two hundred miles of North Carolina.”

“There’s a pattern. Less to do with geography than psychology,” Bec explained, almost as if he was just mumbling to himself.

“What kind of kid does this?” Jack asked him.

Bec retorted. “And what kind of kid _follows_ a kid who does this?”

“There’s no indication that these kids came from abusive families,” Jack said. All eyes in the room were turned on the empath again.

Bec shook his head. “No, no, no. Capture-bonding. A passive, psychological response to a new master. It’s been an essential survival tool for a million years. Bond with your captor, you survive. You don’t… you’re breakfast.”

 

Abigail seemed to have been taking the tea well and Huesyth even thought that there was a chance that she might not even feel the effects of them at all. A shattering crash brings Huesyth back to reality however and Abigail was staring emptily down at the floor where the remnants of the china were scattered across the tile in a puddle of the remaining tea.

“Dr. Bloom said this was okay?” She asked, her voice muddled and slightly slurred.

Quickly, she moved away from the shattered cup as Huesyth rounded the counter to clean the mess. “Not at all. We often have a difference of opinion.”

“More secrets for us then,” She said nonchalantly, picking idly at a bowl of fruit on one of the counters.

“Well, I believe you and I will have many secrets.” Huesyth gathered the pieces into a pile, checking behind him to see Abigail drop herself heavily onto a chair in the corner with a piece of fruit in hand, studying it thoroughly as the effects of the mushrooms must be causing her vision to distort. The colors of the fruit would have been mystically vibrant. “Infusing Psilocybin into the bloodstream before psychotherapy can elicit a positive, even spiritual experience for patients.”

He stood from his crouched position with the shards of china and faced Abigail. “Psychological trauma is an affliction of the powerless. I want to give you your power back.”

Abigail’s eyebrows drew together and she mumbled. “I don’t feel so good.”

Huesyth tossed the pieces into the trash before kneeling in front of Abigail where she sat in the chair.

“That feeling will pass.” He held her head steady between his hands. “Allow it to wash over you, through you. Let me be your guide.”

Her eyes seemed cloudy but she focused behind him on the counter where Huesyth was preparing food. “You’re making breakfast for dinner?”

Huesyth smiled at the display of humor and stood, returning to the counter with Abigail following him to go back to her position on the other side.

“High life eggs. A chef in Spain called Muro claimed he invented it in the 19th century.” He tossed one of the peeled potatoes into the air caught it on the edge of a knife, gaining an impressed smile from Abigail. The sausage sizzled and crackled in its pan, almost done. “Taste is not only biochemical, but it’s also psychological.”

With a raised brow, Abigail looked over at the pan on the stove. “Sausage and eggs was the last meal I was having with my parents before...”

“I know,” Huesyth said without raising his eyes from where he was working. “It’s also the first meal you’re having with me.”

 

Night came far too quickly and Bec rubbed at his eyes as they began to ache from looking at the same evidence over and over again in the examination room. Alana, Beverly, and he had discarded files and photos of missing children that they had accumulated.

“Without the guidance of a leader, these kids would have never considered violent action,” Alana addressed as if that would change the fact that there were still entire dead families laying in the morgue a few halls away.

“Our missing kid is a boy,” Bec explained as he leafed through ones that didn’t fit the profile. “A paradox in the midst of a normal family. An outsider who doesn’t look like one. He’d have a vocation. Something inventive or mechanical.”

“I got one,” Beverly said, bringing up a file she’d been skimming through. “Family moved from Biloxi to Charleston to Fayetteville in the last three years. He won a junior high award for his work on some pretty sophisticated computer circuitry.”

She handed the file off to Bec to allow him to reread it but Alana continued. “Why do you think these kids are susceptible to C.J Lincoln?”

“‘Cause our boy may have a brother, but their ages or their interests keep them apart, so he’s a brother without a brother.”

“Brothers looking for a mother,” Alana corrected and Bec raised an eyebrow at her from over the table. “They’re killing the mothers last.”

The simplicity of it struck Bec like a bullet and he finally understood what the snake from his head was trying to tell him. Quickly, he took the file, excusing himself from the women to strut down to Jack’s office. He knocked lightly on the doorframe, gaining Jack’s attention from his laptop. “Yeah?”

“It’s not just C.J Lincoln. There’s an adult with some sway. It’s a woman, a mother figure and she’s looking to form a family.”

“A family can have a contagion effect on some people. Influences them to adopt similar behaviors and attitudes.”

Bec sighed, stepping forward more into the office. “Whoever this woman is, she wants these children… to _burst_ with love for her. But she has to erase their original family from their lives to do that.”

“So she abducts them, convinces them no one can love them as much as she does, and then makes damn sure of it.”

Bec flipped open the file and passed it off to Jack. “A security camera in a convenient store in Alexandria, Virginia caught footage of a Chris O’Halloran this morning. He was with an unidentified woman.”

“Where are this kid’s parents?” Jack asked as he read over the missing person report on the inside of the file.

“Fayetteville, North Carolina.”

 

**FAYETTEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA**

The FBI swarmed the home in a matter of seconds upon exiting their vehicles, the armored SWAT busting down the front door of the large family home with a battering ram. They quickly scanned through the house but found themselves rushing out the open back door and into the massive backyard where the Lost Boys were formed in a half circle around the O’Halloran family. The older boy, C.J, raising his gun to the father’s head when one of the SWAT shot him in the shoulder. The FBI forced the rest of the boys onto the ground with their hands on their heads but one seemed to have been missing from the batch.

Bec rushed after the short retreating figure of the latest kidnapped boy, Christopher. They ran through another gate and found themselves next to a pool as Bec called out to the boy. “Chris, wait!”

The boy stopped at the head of the pool, turned and drew a pistol on the empath. Bec drew his gun when he noticed but motioned to the follow SWAT member not to shoot yet. Holding up his hands in surrender, Bec tried to talk to Christopher even as more SWAT began taking position around them. “It’s okay. You’re home now. Put the gun down, Christopher.”

The door to the pool shed behind the boy opened and a middle-aged woman stepped out out the darkness, the same woman that was captured on the security tapes of the convenience store. She walked up behind the boy and ran a calming hand through his hair before laying a gun of her own across the boy’s chest.

“Shoot him, Christopher,” She demanded.

“Christopher,” Bec lowered himself onto one knee as he places his gun on the ground by his feet. “Please.”

A shot rang out and a bullet entered the woman’s left shoulder, falling to the ground behind Christopher as the boy still stood there, traumatized. Bec flinched but looked over to where the shot came from to see Beverly rush out of her position from the bushes on either side of the pool to take the boy away. The empath stood, holstering his gun as he approached the woman laid out on the ground with the SWAT surrounding her. He kicked her gun away from her hand so she couldn’t try to use it. She was breathing sharply, tensing through the pain as blood pooled beneath her. He finally stepped away and allowed SWAT to take her away.

 

“As someone who makes such a big deal about common courtesy,” Alana scolded, rather loudly as Huesyth folded his apron and allowed himself to be yelled at by the shorter woman. “I’m a little taken aback that you would take my patient, _my_ patient, out of the hospital without my permission. And I’m not a professional scold… but _don’t_ put me in this position ever again.”

When he was sure she had finished with the most of her frustration, he apologized. “I’m sorry.”

“Rude, Huesyth. _Shockingly_ rude!” She snapped at him.

“You have every right to be upset with me. I overstepped my bounds.”

Alana paced between the kitchen counters but turned to the man again. “Where is she now?”

“She’s in the dining room,” Huesyth explained, motioning to the doorway that would lead her there. The woman glared at him some more but did begin moving towards the door. “And, Alana… you were right.”

“I often am. You have to be more specific.”

“She wasn’t ready to leave the hospital. She… experienced a bit of anxiety so I gave her a sedative.”

Alana’s eyes went wide with worry. “A sedative? What did you give her?”

“I only gave her half a Valium, but she may be a little hazy.”

They entered the dining room to find Abigail sitting at the table with her food and a glass of orange juice in front of her. With bright, glassy, blue eyes, the young girl looked up at them as Alana moved into her line of sight. “Oh, hi, Dr. Bloom.”

“Hello, Abigail,” Alana greeted. She looked down at the third place setting before peering back at the doctor. “Were you expecting me?”

Huesyth didn’t have the heart to explain that they were actually expecting Bec but the empath wasn’t returning his calls. He didn’t feel like giving her that satisfaction and instead pulled out the chair at the third set. “Please, have a seat.”

She accepted the offered seat as Abigail began conversing with her. “You hungry? Huesyth made breakfast for dinner.”

Abigail sounded a bit off but Alana didn’t question it. “I could eat.”

Huesyth took his own seat at the head of the table, pouring Alana a glass of the orange juice as well. He looked back at the young Hobbs girl to see her staring thoughtfully at the doctors with a small smile on her face.

“What is it, Abigail?” Huesyth asked. “What do you see?”

Abigail’s smile grew bigger but her eyes remained out of focus. “I see family.”

 

Before he fell face first into his bed for the night, Bec readjusted the lamps above Monday’s tank for their nighttime settings, a deep red color instead of the daylight bulb. The calm, red and orange toned snake remained curled around his hand as he reorganized a rock set up she’d accidentally knocked over before he brought her up to look at her. “He was good to you guys, right?”

Monday’s tongue flicked out of her mouth as she stared at her father with tiny eyes. He nodded in understanding and slipped her back into the tank, locking the lid in place when she was comfortably slithering about. He tapped lightly at Sunday’s tank as he passed by and the copperhead hissed softly in response. Bec thought, mindlessly, that he should have probably tried to call Dr. Cavalli back as he crawled into bed but unconsciousness took him over quickly. He would have to call him back sometime later.

But before he could slip completely into sleep, there was a weight slowly bearing down on his back until he couldn’t move from the mattress. There was a voice in his ear, clear but hushed as the snake slid closer. “ **You did lovely work, dear.** ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NBC's Hannibal, nor its script and characters, and I don't make any money off of this fic. I rewrote it for me and a friend of mine purely for fun as a way to explore the events but with our original characters and just decided to start posting it.
> 
> New chapter every Wednesday!!


	5. “Coquilles”

The black snake moved in a slow serpentine pattern down the vacant rural road, the plumes of feathers on its neck and spine reflected the light of the bright moon overhead.

Standing before the snake was the empath, dressed in little more than a t-shirt and boxers, walking barefoot across the gravel and asphalt of the road beneath him. He was seemingly unaware of the predator flicking its tongue behind him, tasting the air for him. Bec’s eyes were glassy and vacant, but soon he stumbled to a stop, swaying ever so slightly at his ankles. The snake also slowed, nudging its head against his foot like an affectionate cat would to its beloved owner. But Bec didn’t react, he barely moved at the snake’s touch.

The road stretched on nearly endlessly into black but as his vision moved in and out of focus, a beam of light cut through the darkness. Instinctively, Bec held his arm up to shield his eyes from the glare of the harsh headlights approaching him. The garbled colors, blue and red, soon made themselves clear as the vehicle rolled to a stop a safe distance in front of the empath. Two people exited out of the driver and passenger sides, police officers. The passenger officer flicked on his flashlight, giving the younger man a confused once over due to his state of undress.

“You lost?” The officer asked, shining his light on Bec’s face to gauge if he was some druggy stumbling around in the night.

Bec groaned in pain at the onslaught of light in his eyes and mumbled. “Uh, what?”

The officer motioned to him with his chin. “What’s your name?”

His senses were coming back to him. Finally, Bec could tell that he was freezing and that his feet felt horrible, raw and most likely blistered. “Bec Reyes.”

The passenger officer lowered his light away from Bec’s face. “Do you know where you are, Mr. Reyes?”

Shaking his head, Bec searched around the edges of the woods on either side of the road, his breath was coming out in visual clouds in front of his face. “No.”

“Where do you live?” The officer asked.

“Wolf Trap, Virginia,” Bec coughed, realizing his throat was dry from the frigid air.

“We're in Wolf Trap, so that's good. You're close to home.”

The driver officer stepped forward slightly, narrowing his eyes at the empath. “Are you okay, sir?”

With narrowed eyes, Bec tipped his head questioningly and the officer pointed to his own face in the area beneath his nose. The empath raised a hand to his face, brushing under his nose to feel it come away wet and his fingers stained red.

“That happens a lot,” Bec responded casually. “Hey... uh, can I sit down? My feet are sore.”

“Why don’t we take you home,” The passenger officer offered.

“Okay,” Bec said, wrapping his hands around himself as a shiver ran through his body.

They allowed him to sit in the back of their cruiser and even gave him a blanket for the chill. He pressed a napkin against his face to stop the blood flowing from his nose. The passenger officer leaned in through the window to address him again. “Are you on any drugs? Medication? Prescription or otherwise?”

Bec shook his head again, assuming that aspirin didn’t really count. “No.”

“You been drinking?”

“No. Uh, yes. Not excessively. I had two fingers of whiskey before I went to bed.”

“Do you have a history of sleepwalking, Mr. Reyes?”

Bec hesitated before answering. “I'm not even sure if I'm awake now.”

 

**BALTIMORE, MARYLAND**

Calmly, Huesyth moved throughout his kitchen, still dressed in his bathrobe after being roused from sleep, preparing coffee for his guest despite the unplanned visit. “Although I may be, is it safe to assume you're not sleepwalking now?”

Bec sighed, fully dressed and leaning against the counter that Huesyth was at, but relatively bright-eyed. “I'm sorry it's so early.”

“Never apologize for coming to me. Office hours are for patients. My kitchen is always open to you,” Huesyth explained with a smile, he added a scoop of sugar to the coffee before handing it to Bec. “Onset of sleepwalking in adulthood is less common than in children.”

“Could it be a seizure?”

The doctor moved to prepare himself a cup as well. “I'd argue good old-fashioned post-traumatic stress. Jack Crawford has gotten your hands very dirty.”

“I wasn't forced back into the field,” Bec reminded, sipping from his cup and allowing the liquid to burn his throat.

Huesyth shrugged slightly. “I wouldn't say ‘forced’. ‘Manipulated’ would be the word I'd choose.”

“I can handle it,” Bec retorted without looking up.

“Somewhere between denying horrible events and calling them out lies the truth of psychological trauma,” Huesyth added as he poured his own cup of coffee.

Bec scoffed. “So I can’t handle it.”

“Your experience may have overwhelmed ordinary functions that give you a sense of control.”

“If my body is walking around without my permission, you'd say that's a loss of control?”

The doctor kept his eyes on Bec and took a sip from his cup. “Wouldn’t you?”

They sat in silence for a moment as they drank their coffee and Bec was lost to his thoughts. He hadn’t had a bout of sleepwalking since he was younger and it was how he got most of the scars that littered his body. He often wondered how he didn’t scare his parents into heart attacks. He could only imagine how he’d feel waking up in the middle of the night to see your son with a broken shard of glass nearly sticking out of his arm. They probably almost thought to just lock him in his room at night until he was older.

But he was sure that it had not been a problem for him until he started using his empathy more often. He couldn’t turn it off but he could choose not to pay attention to it and it usually helped with the headaches and the nosebleeds. It made him feel like a child again, waking up full of fear, confusion, and pain in locations he didn’t remember falling asleep at. It made him feel weak and small again. Dependent and pathetic.

But it was Huesyth broke the silence first. “Sleepwalkers demonstrate a difficulty handling aggression. Are you experiencing difficulty with aggressive feelings?”

Bec raised an eyebrow at the doctor but responded. “You said Jack sees me as fine china used for special guests but I'm beginning to feel more like an old mug.”

The doctor chuckled softly, loosely wrapping one of his arms around Bec’s middle and rubbing lightly at the empath’s hip with his thumb. “You entered into a devil's bargain with Jack Crawford. It takes a toll.”

“Jack isn’t the devil,” Bec said surely.

“When it comes to how far he's willing to push you to get what he wants, he's certainly no saint.”

Bec wanted to retort. Wanted to defend Jack’s motives because he understood them but he couldn’t find the words for it. Instead, he gently placed his cup on the counter behind him. The doctor noticed the sudden silence and began to pull away when the empath grabbed his arm to keep him in place. Bec’s eyes peered down to Huesyth’s lips for a moment before he brought his hand up to cup the doctor’s neck. Hesitantly, Bec moved in to press a chaste kiss to Huesyth’s mouth.

The taller man enjoyed it as long as he could before Bec pulled back, the hand on his neck falling to pick at the lapels of his robe. “I like this look on you, Doctor.”

Huesyth chuckled lowly, nuzzling his nose against Bec’s cheek. “Very forward of you, Bec.”

“I’m trying to be more forthcoming about my thoughts and feelings.”

“And it is greatly appreciated,” Huesyth purred, pressing gentle kisses to Bec’s face as he rubbed his hand along the empath’s hip in soothing circles. “If you feel unsafe being at your own home alone, just know you’re always welcome to stay here with me.”

The doctor pulled back to match eyes with the shorter man. “Thank you for the hospitality, Doctor.”

The taller man raised an eyebrow at Bec and the empath realized what the look meant, correcting himself. “ _Huesyth_. Thank you, Huesyth.”

 

**TRENTON, NEW JERSEY**

Rolling up to the taped off motel already made a headache begin blooming in the back of Bec’s head. They moved through the teams of local police officers and FBI agents that milled about outside the room, the officers looking more than a little queasy.

“Room was registered to a John Smith. Heh, big surprise there,” Jack started.

Bec adjusted his glasses on his nose and deadpanned. “An appalling failure of imagination.”

As they marched towards the room, Jack pulled on rubber gloves that were handed to him. “They paid cash. There are no security cameras on the premises… another big surprise.”

“Is John Smith one of the victims?” The empath asked.

“Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, according to the register. They were mutilated and displayed,” Jack explained before continuing in a tone almost akin to disappointment. “I thought it might be The Chesapeake Ripper, but there were no surgical trophies taken. I'm gonna need you to prepare yourself on this one.”

“I’m prepared,” Bec mumbled as he too pulled on a pair of gloves.

Pausing short of the door, Jack turned to the empath with concern in his eyes. “Prepare yourself some more. It's soup in there.”

“Soup isn't good for the soul.”

“Not this kind,” Jack agreed. “Alright, look, there are no jurisdictional rivalries here. The local police begged us to take this. Where's your head?”

Bec pulled himself back from where he’d practically been dozing on his feet, he finally just yanked the glasses off of his face and shoved them into his jacket pocket. “It's on my pillow, considering I didn't sleep.”

“Got just the thing to wake you up.”

Disgruntled, Bec couldn’t help but sigh softly before entering the room that one of the coroners had gestured to when they walked up. The empath’s step stuttered in the doorway as he took in the sight he saw within the small room. Two bloody and naked bodies, a male and a female, kneeling at either side of the foot of the bed. The flesh of their backs mutilated, skin carved up and hung by hooks and fishing line to mimic outstretched wings. Their wrists were bound in front of them with the same line and their heads lolled loosely in front of them to mimic a praying posture.

“Okay,” Bec said numbly when they moved farther into the dim room. “I’m awake.”

“Hooks were bored into the ceiling,” Jack explained, motioning above him to the handiwork. “Fishing line was used to hold up the bodies and... the wings.”

“At least we know he's a fisherman,” Beverly quipped as she wrote down her findings in a small notebook.

“Or a Viking,” Jimmy said from where he had been crouched down and dusting for prints on an open bottle of scotch and three glasses.

Brian stepped up, taking photos of the inflicted wounds on the bodies. “Vikings do this?”

Jimmy explained. “Vikings used to execute Christians by breaking their ribs, bending them back, and draping the lungs over them to resemble wings. They used to call it a ‘blood eagle.’”

“Pagans mocking the God Fearing,” Bec added.

Jack moved to stand behind Bec’s left shoulder. “Then who's mocking who?”

The empath shook his head slightly. “No, he isn't mocking them. He's transforming them.”

“I don't know if it was a good night's sleep, but he slept here,” Beverly said as she scanned the head of the bed where the sheets were rumpled and obviously used. “Hair on the pillow and the sheets are still damp. He’s a sweater.”

A voice whispered in his ear. “ **What do you see?** ”

“Madness slept here last night,” Bec whispered shakily. Immediately regretting even speaking to it as the snake made a pleased sound, rubbing against his face with its head almost affectionately.

Beverly dabbed at a pool of vomit over the edge of the bed and onto the nightstand. “He threw up on the nightstand.”

“Couldn’t stomach what he did,” Jack thought out loud. “Flop sweat and nervous indigestion.”

“Not nervous. Righteous. Thinks he's... Elevating them somehow,” Bec’s hand began to twitch at his side. “I need a plastic sheet for the bed.”

A plastic sheet covered the entire bed, creating a barrier to avoid evidence tampering. After the rest of the team evacuated the room, Bec laid back against the headboard and glanced down at the man-made angels at his feet.

Shakily, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting the pendulum swing.

“This is not who you are.”

_The bodies cleaned themselves of blood and the skin that had been ripped from them had healed. The hooks and wires disappearing from sight._

“This is my gift to you.”

_Simultaneously, the skin flaps split open like wings and unfurled in one gracefully horrific movement. Blood rushed down their backs, the fishing lines were backlit with a ray of heavenly light that seeped through the motel windows._

“I allow you to become angels. And now, I lay me down to sleep.” _His eyelids slid shut again to allow him to fall into a protected slumber._

But a strong tail wrapped itself around his throat in an attempt to strangle him. He gasped, hands flying to his neck and eyes shooting open as he tried to scramble out of the bed. Bec gripped his neck to find nothing there, eyes searching about the room to find no serpent enemy in sight. A drop of blood slid down his face and he caught it before it could contaminate the scene.

 

Huesyth drizzled a fine spoonful of sauce onto the second course followed by a garnish. He rested one plate on the crook of his arm, another on the flat of his forearm and the last in his hand as he returned to the dining room. Jack Crawford sat on one side of the table, sipping at his wine, and across from him sat a beautiful woman in her late forties. She had coiling black hair that descended past her shoulders but unlike her husband, she wore a mask of discontentment. He placed one of the plates in front of Jack’s wife, Bella, as he began speaking.

“A masterpiece foie gras au torchon with a late harvest of vidal sauce... With dried and fresh figs.”

He placed another plate at his setting and the last at Jack’s, gaining a compliment from the other man. “Wonderful.”

“Mrs. Crawford,” Huesyth said to gain the woman’s attention, returning to his seat. “Your husband introduced you as Bella. Are you an Isabelle or an Annabelle?”

“I'm a Phyllis,” Bella responded with a hint of a smile on her full lips, turning her eyes to her husband. “Jack only calls me Phyllis when we disagree.”

“So, named Bella for your beauty,” Huesyth commented.

“We were both stationed in Italy. I was army, she was NATO staff,” Jack explained. “All of the Italian men kept calling her ‘Bella, Bella, Bella.’ Well, I wanted her to be my Bella.”

It was an odd sight to see the older agent this enraptured with someone. The amount of clear joy she brought him was evident but the tenseness was there. Some unspoken monster was sleeping between them, threatening to awaken at any time they think to mention it.

Jack took a bite of his terrine and hummed happily. “Mm. Cold foie gras with warm figs.”

“Yes,” Huesyth agreed.

“Very nice.”

With a curl of her lip, Bella eyed the Terrine of Foie Gras before she looked over to address the doctor. “Would I be a horrible guest if I skipped this course?”

“Too rich?” Huesyth asked.

Firmly, Bella responded. “Too cruel.”

“Phyllis,” Jack pressed.

“ _Jack_ ,” Bella said back in the same biting tone.

In order to break up the tension quickly forming, Huesyth cut in. “First and worst sign of sociopathic behavior: Cruelty to animals.”

“That doesn't apply in the kitchen,” Jack reminded.

Huesyth turned back to a still wary Bella. “I have no taste for animal cruelty, which is why I employ an ethical butcher.”

“An _ethical_ butcher?” She repeated in disbelief, raising her eyebrows. “Be kind to animals and then eat them?”

“I'm afraid I insist on it. No need for unnecessary suffering,” Huesyth sipped from his glass of wine, tasting its bitter fruitiness as it splashed across his tongue, before continuing. “Human emotions are a gift from our animal ancestors. Cruelty is a gift that humanity has given itself.”

Huesyth stood to pour Bella more wine as Jack lamented. “A gift that keeps on giving.”

The doctor leaned slightly over the woman’s left shoulder as poured her the wine and he was able to catch a waft of the fragrance she was wearing. But there was something else being masked underneath it. A usually clear smell in rotting bodies or decaying plants: the scent of death. Something was growing inside her chest and it was killing her.

He steadied himself and continued. “Your perfume is exquisite. Similar to the aroma on the earth just after lightning strikes. Is it Jar?”

Bella looked up at the man with a raised eyebrow. “That is some nose you have there, Doctor.”

“He really is quite charming, isn't he?” Jack commented but Bella turned her look to her husband.

Huesyth stepped away to refill Jack’s glass next. “I first noticed my keen sense of smell when I was a young man. I was aware one of my teachers had stomach cancer even before he was.”

After that comment, Huesyth noticed that Bella was carefully watching him but Jack seemed none the wiser as he said jokingly. “Hm. Wow, that must have been some parlor trick.”

The doctor gave Jack a smile as he returned the bottle to the center of the table. “For our next course, roasted pork shank. And I assure you, Bella, it was an especially supercilious pig.”

An almost imperceptible reaction from the woman as she just barely narrowed her eyes. Exactly the effect Huesyth was trying to achieve.

 

She pulled back one of the grotesque flaps of skin from the body to observe the depth of the skinning. Observing the bumpy, bloody vertebrae revealed, Beverly curled her lip slightly in disgust behind the plastic mask she was using to shield her face.

"’Death makes angels of us all and gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as ravens claws,’" Beverly quoted as she clipped a plastic tool along the flap of mutilated skin on Mrs. Anderson’s back in order to hold it steady.

One by one, Brian removed the metal fish hooks from their flesh, dropping them into a pan by his side. “Robert Frost.”

“Jim Morrison,” Bec corrected. Beverly looked up and gave him a smile but the empath could feel Brian squint his eyes at him despite the fact that Bec wasn’t even looking at him.

Beverly continued as her attention went back to the body. “Even a drunk with a flair for the dramatic can convince himself he's God. Or the lizard king.”

“God makes angels. Jesus was fond of fishermen,” Jimmy noted. “Are we talking hardcore Judeo-Christian upsetting, or just upsetting in general?”

“This is a very specific upsetting,” Bec answered.

Brian motioned to the wounds. “Increased serotonin in the wounds is much higher than the free histamines, so, uh... she lived for about fifteen minutes after she was skinned.”

Jimmy read the results of his trace analysis. “Powder residue on the neck of the soda bottle shows Vecuronium... scotch and soda and a paralytic agent.”

“Kneeling in supplication at the feet of G dash D,” Brian said to Jimmy.

Quirking an eyebrow, Jimmy hummed. “Supplication is the most common form of prayer. Gimme, gimme, gimme.”

With his headache blooming again, Bec cut in after he ran a gloved hand over his eyes. “They weren't praying to him. They were praying for him... He's afraid.”

Curiously, Beverly looked up from the body again to ask. “What is somebody who could do something like _this_ afraid of?”

Several answers flew through Bec’s mind but the clearest one required him to ask his own question. “What's in his vomit?”

Jimmy looked down at his report again. “Uh, Dexamethasone…”

“That’s used for patients with tumors,” Brian realized.

“Keppra…” Jimmy continued.

“He's epileptic. Radiation?”

“Gamma four.”

“Steroids for the inflammation, anticonvulsants for the seizures, radiation for the chemotherapy. Our guy has a brain tumor,” Brian said, his eyes turning back to the empath.

Bec was right. He wished that he wasn’t but he was again. For some reason, having his realization spoken aloud made a wave of pity and nausea roll through his gut.

“He's afraid of dying in his sleep,” Bec told the other three. “He's making his own angels to watch over him.”

 

Huesyth once again opened his office door only to find someone he wasn’t expecting standing in his waiting room but unlike so many others, she actually made a formal appointment before showing up.

“Mrs. Crawford,” He said. She turned to him, beautiful even with the unrest seemingly brewing in her mind. “Please come in.”

She gave him a thin smile as she entered. Bella settled in and sat across from him in his office but he could tell something was weighing on her. “How often do you see him?”

“Twice a week at first. Now usually just once,” Bella explained without hesitation.

“You’re satisfied then?”

She shrugged slightly. “Enough to keep seeing him.”

“Your intention is not to tell Jack.”

“I don't see what good it would do,” Bella pressed. “Jack sees the world at its _worst_. I don't need him seeing me at mine. He already has too much to worry about.”

“He has room for one more worry,” Huesyth reminded. “I feel like you’re protecting him.”

“I am,” She stated before raising an eyebrow at the doctor. “I've had dinner at your home. You have a professional relationship with my husband. There's no conflict of interest, me being here?”

“It's unorthodox, but not unheard of. Given the nature of your problem, seeing someone who knows Jack removes some of the guesswork.”  
Bella averted her eyes. “This all started as some misguided stab at maintaining my dignity.”

“Nothing undignified about this,” Huesyth said.

“Not yet. But I have indignity to look forward to, don't I?”

Huesyth tipped his head to the side slightly. “The only indignity I see is resentment. Why do you resent your husband?”

Bella paused to think of the words to answer and even then her response came out hesitantly. “I resent that Jack... Has too much to worry about to worry about me.”

“But that’s your choice. Not his.”

“Then maybe you should see us _both_ for couples counseling.”

“I would recommend another psychiatrist for couples. I wouldn't want you to have the home-couch advantage.”

“It's hard enough dealing with how I feel about all of this. Don't need to deal with how Jack feels about it.”

 

That night, Huesyth scanned the many shelves he had on the second floor of his office in search of a specific one on Neurology. He pulled it from its spot once he finds it and turns back to the railing to face Bec below him.

“There is no one and only spiritual center of the brain,” He tossed the book down to the empath who caught it easily. “Any idea of God comes from many different areas of the mind working together in unison.”

Bec flipped through the pages of the book but he wasn’t comprehending many of the words that he was reading. His mind working to fast on the killer’s profile that he had beating around inside his skull. “Maybe I was wrong. How do you profile someone who has an anomaly in their head changing the way they think?”

“A tumor can definitely affect brain function, even cause vivid hallucinations,” The doctor confirmed. “However, what appears to be driving your Angel Maker to create heaven on earth is a simple issue of mortality.”

“Can't beat God so you become him?” Bec asked from the ground level.

“You said yourself that he was afraid.”

Bec reiterated. “He feels abandoned.”

Huesyth paused as he skimmed through another book he pulled from the shelves, not looking up when he asked. “Ever feel abandoned, Bec?”

Bec scoffed. “No. Abandonment requires expectation.”

“What were your expectations of Jack Crawford and the FBI?”

The empath shut the book in his hands, more forcefully than he needed to, and tossed it onto Huesyth’s desk. “Jack hasn't abandoned me, Huesyth.”

“Not in any discernible way,” The doctor shrugged. “Perhaps in the way gods abandon their creations. You say he hasn't abandoned you, but at the same time you find yourself wandering around Wolf Trap in the middle of the night.”

Bec tilted his head to the side slightly and chuckled, confused about where Huesyth was going with this analysis. “Well... This should be interesting. Please, Doctor, proceed.”

“Jack gave you his word he would protect your headspace. Yet he leaves you to your own mental devices.”

The empath furrowed his brow up at the taller man. “Are you trying to alienate me from Jack Crawford?”

“I'm trying to help you understand this Angel Maker you seek,” The doctor explained, backpedaling from the previous questioning.

“Well, help me understand how to catch him,” Bec grumbled to himself, leaning back against the desk.

“If he were a classic paranoid schizophrenic, you might be able to influence him to become visible.”

“What? Scare him out into the daylight?” Bec asked, sipping the coffee he’d brought in.

“Might even get him to hurt himself if he hasn't already.”

“If he were self-destructive, h-he wouldn't be so careful.”

“Unless he's careful about being self-destructive. Making angels to pray over him when he sleeps,” Huesyth paused. “Who prays over us when we sleep?”

Bec peered up at the doctor, he had no answer for the question.

 

**CLEVELAND, OHIO**

A moody evening, moonlight filtering through the hazy light pollution hanging above the city. But Bec wasn’t there to judge the city on its pollution.

Instead, he stood below a man-made alter where a corpse of a man had been mounted on scaffolding covered in plastic sheets creating a divine luminescing from behind. Lines of blood streaking the transparent plastic sheets served as a macabre halo emanating down from the flayed angel wings cut out of his back. Beneath the angel’s corpse was a crumpled, stained mattress. The empath was so captivated, he could almost drown out the police sirens echoing from behind him.

“ **Your head feels hot,** ” The snake whispered in his ear. Bec was less startled but he couldn’t stop the clench of his throat when he remembered the feeling of the serpent’s tail wrapped around his neck like a tourniquet. “ **It’s getting worse, my dear. You shouldn’t have to keep destroying yourself for those that don’t appreciate your gifts.** ”

A shadow began approaching from behind him and Bec shrugged off the snake to get it to cease chattering in his ear. He didn’t miss, however, how the snake immediately hissed low in its throat when Jack came to stand by Bec’s side.

“Why angels?” The agent asked, not taking his eyes off the disturbing scene.

“Well, it isn't Biblical. His angels have wings,” Bec noticed how Jack raised an eyebrow at him and explained. “Um, angels in sculptures and paintings can fly, but not in scripture.”

“He's drawing from secular sources?”

Bec scoffed. “His mind has turned against him and there's no one there to help.”

“Uh, Jack…” Brian called from the disgusting mattress he’d walked up to examine the fleshy mounds left there. “Look at this.”

Jimmy pointed at what Brian was referring to, a pair of severed testicles, with his pen. “Are those... What are those?”

“Somebody got an orchiectomy real cheap,” Brian commented.

Beverly flicked on her flashlight, shining it up at the victim to look over his nearly pristine pants he’d been left in. “Doesn't look like the victim.”

Jimmy raised a confused eyebrow. “So they’re the Angel Maker’s?”

“He castrated himself?” Beverly questioned.

“So he isn't just making angels, he's getting ready to become one,” Bec said. The others gave him odd looks so he explained. “Angels don't have genitalia.”

“So he was afraid of dying. Now he's, what, getting used to the idea?” Jack asked.

Bec scratched the back of his head. “He's accepting it or he's bargaining.”

“ **He knows he’s dying. Maybe he’s trying to save as many souls as possible before his own inevitable demise,** ” The snake suggested. Bec shrugged slightly at the suggestion, a definite possibility.

“Heh, bargaining chips!” Brian joked to the other two scientists after he bagged the testicles.

“So, does this mean that he's done making angels, or is he just getting started?” Jack continued to ask.

“I don’t know,” Bec answered irritably, his head swimming with all the conversations surrounding him.

“ **There isn’t enough evidence to tell any motive and with a tumor pressing on his brain who knows what the Angel Maker is seeing.** ” Having the snake and Jack blabbering into both of his ears was making a headache raise up in Bec’s mind.

“Well, he's not just killing them when he's sleepy,” Jack pressed, turning to face the empath. “I mean, how is he choosing them?”

The snake was growing noticeably agitated, its body tightening as if preparing to strike. “I don't know. Ask him.”

“I’m asking you,” Jack reminded him.

Bec finally turned to the agent, clear frustration in his voice. “You're the _head_ of the Behavioral Science Unit, Jack. Why don't you come up with your own answers if you don't like mine?”

A stillness washed over the scientists with Bec’s blatant disrespect. The snake, however, _purred_ at the boldness of its host and once again rubbed its head against Bec’s jaw in praise. Jack locked Bec with a cold stare, almost shocked by the telling off, and moved to stand in front of the empath. The agent scanned over Bec’s face for a moment before sticking his hand into his coat pocket and distributed a tissue, holding it out to the shorter man. Bec was briefly confused before he touched his fingers to his face to see them come away red. Shamefully, he took the tissue from the agent’s hand and pressed it to his bloody nose.

“I _did not_ hear that,” Jack snapped at him. “Did I?”

The scientists immediately retreated at the sound of Jack’s demanding voice, leaving the empath alone with the agent. Bec scrubbed the blood off of his face, probably far more harshly than he needed to. “No, you didn't. I'm sorry.”

He moved passed the agent to continue his analysis on the Angel Maker but he could tell that Jack was still staring at him as if he’d grown a second head. The snake hummed praise in his ear over standing up for himself but Bec couldn’t see it that way, the embarrassment making his headache intensify and soon even the snake faded from the front of his mind.

 

The next day, Bec stood between the corpses of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson in the morgue as he tried to decipher what it was about the couple that caused the Angel Maker to cut them into angels. As alone in the work bay as he was in his head. The silence was disrupted when Beverly entered and leaned on the morgue drawer, studying the odd empath.

“I've never heard anybody talk to Jack the way you talked to Jack,” She started.

“I was out of lined,” Bec told. Something in him had a spike of anger at him saying that out loud.

But Beverly was the first to correct him. “You were out of your _mind_. My ears rang like the first time I heard my mom use the f-word.”

The empath gave a small huff of a chuckle but couldn’t help the slight cringe of being ‘out of his mind’. Beverly noticed the uncomfortableness and asked. “You okay? I know it's a stupid question considering that none of us could possibly be okay doing what we do. But... are you okay?”

Another question he couldn’t really answer so instead he asked one of his own. “Do I see different?”

Beverly tipped her head to the side. “You're a little different, but you've always been a little different. Brilliant strategy... that way no one ever knows if something's up with you.”

“How would I know if something is up with you?”

She shrugged slightly. “You wouldn't. But I would tell you if you asked me. Return the favor?”

Before he could answer, Bec saw Jimmy approaching them and immediately averted his gaze, the moment broken.

The older scientist passed a file off to the empath as he began explaining. “Meet Roger and Marilyn Brunner,” He pointed to the bodies of so-called ‘Mr. and Mrs. Anderson’. “You might recognize them from such lists as most wanted. He likes to rape and murder, she likes to watch. We got a DNA match. They falsified the motel registry and were driving a stolen car, so it took a second to identify them.”

“I wonder how long it took Angel Maker to identify them,” Bec wondered. “He didn't choose them randomly.”

“He knows something about them,” Jimmy continued, handing the second file off to Beverly. “The murdered security guard wasn't actually a security guard. He was a convicted felon.”

“Could Angel Maker be a vigilante?” Beverly asked.

Maybe the snake was actually onto something, Bec thought. “Well, vigilantes are pragmatic, they're purposeful. They don't lay down and sleep under their crimes. In his mind, he was doing God's work.”

Beverly closed the file she’d been thumbing through. “That spells vigilante.”

“Well, playing at God has other advantages. One of them... Is always being alone.”

Beverly looked between the two bodies in front of them. “So he makes angels out of demons.”

“How does he know they’re demons?” Jimmy questioned.

Bec adjusted his jaw. “He doesn't have to know. All he has to do is believe.”

 

Bella took a deep breath, once again sitting across from Huesyth in his office. The doctor allowed her moment to collect her thoughts before asking. “Has Jack begun to suspect? He's a behavioral specialist. He must know you are keeping something from him.”

“Oh, he knows,” The woman concluded with a nod of her head. “He asked me if I was having an affair... by reassuring me that he didn't have to ask.”

“I doubt he believes you're unfaithful,” Huesyth assured.

“And why do you doubt that?” Bella asked with a tight smile.

“It's clear you love your husband.”

That seemed to hit Bella harder than Huesyth intended, the tight smile crumbling on the corners. She deflected it, however. “Women who love their husbands still find reasons to cheat on them.”

“Not you,” Huesyth disagreed. “Still, you seem more betrayed by Jack than by your own body.”

“I don't feel betrayed by Jack,” Bella explained. “And there's no point in being mad at cancer for being cancer.”

“You believe that?”

“Cancer isn’t cruel,” Bella stated surely with a shake of her head. “Tiny cell wanders off from my liver, gets lost. Finds its way into my lung, where it's just trying to do its job and... grow a liver.”

“What it grows and where it's growing it will likely kill you.”

“Not likely. It _will_ kill me. And no amount of blueberries or antioxidants can change that now.”

“But you hold Jack accountable for his inability to cure cancer,” She looked off, almost frustrated. Huesyth tried again. “Should I have said his inability to save you? Would that be more accurate?”

“I am slowly shrinking while this tiny thing grows larger every day. And yet I feel fine.”

“You will feel fine…” Huesyth agreed. “Up until the precise moment you don't.”

“It's... really a very dull story, though, isn't it? The ending is always the same and that same is that it ends.”

“So, you withdraw from your relationship with your husband. The man who strolled along the quays of Livorno, Italy, and called you Bella.”

She averted her gaze again but didn’t deflect. He didn’t press.

 

Bec’s eyes fluttered open without him wanting them too. He could only see the dark ceiling of his bedroom, the same one he fell asleep looking at a few hours before. Turning his head to the side, the neon blue numbers of his alarm clock read: 11:35 PM. He blinked at the numbers and instead they read: 2:02 AM. Finally, his eyelids began sliding closed again under their own weight but before they did, he looked again. 5:03 AM.

“ **You’re beautiful.** ”

Distant sounds of trees rustling slowly roused him to consciousness and he opened his eyes again, expecting to see the ceiling. Instead, he saw the expanse of his of his front yard and driveway. Looking down to the roofing tile of his front porch awning under his bare feet. He looked back at the open second-floor window that he apparently crawled through to get onto the roof of all places. He scrambled back to the outside wall as his balance began to leave him, his breathing going heavy and ragged.

 

The empath shook two aspirins into his palm, downing them quickly without water as Huesyth observed him from in front of his own desk.

“It's difficult to lie still and fear going to sleep,” Huesyth began, his expression almost pitying. “What is there to think about? You listen to your own breathing in the dark and the tiny clicks of your blinking eyes.”

“I dream more now than I used to,” Bec explained, pacing about in an attempt to avoid the regular patient hot seat that they were usually sat in. “More accurately, I’ve been having far more nightmares.”

“Have you been writing in the journal I gave you?” The empath shrugged, almost shamefully but Huesyth continued. “Well, your dreams were the one place you could be physically safe relinquishing control. Not anymore.”

“Yeah, I thought about zipping myself up into a sleeping bag before I go to sleep, but it, heh, sounds like a poor man's straightjacket,” Bec tried to joke but the underlying skittishness that waking up on his roof left him with was still present. He wrapped his arms around himself with a heavy sigh.

“Have you determined how this Angel Maker is choosing his victims?” Huesyth asked.

“Well, he doesn't see people how everyone else sees them. He can tell if you're naughty or nice, or he thinks he can,” Bec said, turning to the patient exit as if wanting to escape but instead he seemed more drawn to the statue of a black snake that was erected on a podium near the door.

“So God has given this person insight into the souls of men?” Huesyth asked.

“God didn't give him anything,” Bec corrected, moving towards the familiar apparition. “Besides a tumor. He's just a man whose brain is playing tricks on him.”

“You’re not unlike this killer,” Huesyth claimed.

The empath picked idly at the snake’s metal body and the ridges between its scales. Unlike the one in his mind, this one didn’t have the plumes of feathers down its spine. “My brain is playing tricks on me?”

“You want to feel such sweet and easy peace. The Angel Maker wants that same peace. He hopes to feel his way cautiously inside and then find it's endless, all around him.”

The empath mumbled. “He's gonna be disappointed.”

“You accept the impossibility of such a feeling. Whereas the Angel Maker is still chasing it. If he got close to it, that's why he will look for it again.”

Bec withdrew his hand from the statue. “I've tried to reconstruct his thinking, find his patterns.”

“Instead you find yourself in a behavior pattern you can't break. You realize you have a choice.”

The empath spared a brief glance over his shoulder back at Huesyth. “What is it?”

Huesyth moved finally and drew closer to the empath’s back. “The Angel Maker will be destroyed by what's happening inside his head. You don't have to be.”

An arm found it’s way around Bec’s waist again and pulled back slightly to have his back pressed flush against Huesyth’s front. He felt the doctor nudge his nose through the curls on the back of his head and could almost hear Huesyth take a deep breath. The scent of lake water, pine and wood chips filled Huesyth’s nose. It reminded him of a summer afternoon at a lakeside cabin but the potent aroma of an abhorrent aftershave that muddled the cleanness of his natural scent made the doctor cringe. But there was something else, there was _always_ something else, and within the gray matter of Bec’s brain was something that smelled akin to _fire_.

“Did you just _smell_ me?” The empath asked and the doctor pressed his lips to the revealed skin on the back of Bec’s neck.

“Difficult to avoid,” Huesyth rumbled near the smaller man’s ear. A shiver ran through Bec’s body and to keep himself from standing there like a tree stump he began playing with the doctor’s fingers that he had splayed across Bec’s stomach. “I really must introduce you to a finer aftershave. That smells like something with a ship on the bottle.”

“Well, I keep getting it for Christmas,” Bec huffed. He brought a hand up to rub it against Huesyth’s jaw.

After pressing frequent kisses against any of Bec’s skin that was revealed to him, Huesyth asked. “Have your headaches been any worse lately? More frequent?”

“Yes, actually,” Bec answered hesitantly.

“I'd change the aftershave.”

Bec made an offended laugh before twisting his head back to press an uncoordinated kiss to the side of Huesyth’s mouth. He pulled out of the doctor’s grip and resumed his pacing about the office.

 

The empath was called into the B.A.U. because they were sure that they had identified the true identity of the Angel Maker. A thirty-five-year-old truck driver named Elliot Budish, married with two children but the family hadn’t seen him in nearly four months.

Despite his protests, Jack wanted him there when he interrogated the man’s wife, Emma. They sat opposite to her in the older agent’s office, a slightly anxious woman who was unsure of why she was there.

“Have you heard from him since he left?” Jack asked, drawing the skittish woman’s attention to him.

She corrected. “I left him. And, uh, no. No, I haven't.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Because of his cancer,” She hesitantly answered. “It makes me sound like a horrible wife.”

“I’m sure you had your reasons,” Jack consoled.

“I took a leave from work to, uh, to be with him. I wanted to be there for him. But what he wanted was to be alone. He just kept pulling away and pulling away. He made it clear he didn't want me there. And then it wasn't clear. And then it didn't matter why he was acting the way he was. It was weird for the kids. I mean, what kind of mother exposes her children to someone who is losing their mind?”

As she spoke, Jack’s face seemed to have dropped. Bec could see that something in his mind was connecting and the older agent pushed himself off from leaning against his desk and rounded it to sit down heavily in his chair. The empath realizes he had to pick up the interrogation as Jack is clearly suddenly distracted by whatever is making his mind spin.

“Was he ever violent, Mrs. Budish?” Bec questioned.

“He was angry,” She explained but her hesitation suggested a more complicated answer than yes or no. “But he never hit me or the boys. It was hardest on them to see him slip away. He lost himself. And they lost a father. I thought that as he got weaker, as the cancer got worse, that it would be less confusing for them. They could just see him as a sick man instead of someone who was so terrified.”

“And, uh, did your husband's faith falter after he was told about the cancer?”

Her brows pinched together slightly at the question. “Elliot wasn't ever religious. Is he doing something religious?”

“He may believe he is.”

Jack took a deep breath, sitting forward in his chair to speak up. “Your husband is dying, Mrs. Budish, and soon. We'd just like to... we'd like to find him before he hurts himself or anyone else.”

The older agent’s words seemed heavier than they did moments ago and Bec could tell the emotion in them carried a deeper connection to the woman’s situation.

“He... had a near-death experience. He suffocated in a fire when he was a little boy. Fireman said he must've had a guardian angel.”

“Where did this happen?” Bec asked.

She swallowed tightly. “Um... a farm... Where he grew up.”

 

They stomped through the dead grass surrounding the dilapidated barn with its rusted metal roof and rotting walls. No one had been there in what seemed to be years or at least they didn’t care to for the upkeep of the place. Jack seemed to have been still stuck in a daze and shuffled behind Bec as the empath approached the already opened barn door.

He wasn’t expecting a fight. He wasn’t expecting the Angel Maker to pull a gun on them and beg them to leave or else they’d be turned to angels too. But he also wasn’t expecting to find another angel of death hung from the rafters of the barn above them, this one seemingly fresher than the others.

A stunned moment passed as the two took in the horrific image before Bec removed his glasses from his face and spoke up with a nod. “This will be the last one.”

“It’s Budish?” Jack asked.

“He made himself into an angel,” The younger man said. “It wasn't God, it wasn't man. It was his choice to die.”

“His choice?” Jack said, drawing nearer to the empath.

“As much as he could make it,” Bec concurred. He could sense another set of eyes on him, feel the snake’s body brush against his boot as it moved across the barn floor. It felt real. Far too real for comfort. “I don't know how much longer I can be all that useful to you, Jack.”

“Really?” Jack challenged. “You caught three. The last three we had, you caught.”

“No, I didn't catch this one. Elliot Budish... surrendered.”

Jack let out a frustrated sigh. “You know, I'm used to my wife not talking to me. I don't have to get used to you not talking to me too.”

The agent moved to storm off out of the barn but Bec turned to finally confess before he could leave. “It's getting harder and harder to make myself look.”

Jack stopped in his tracks and turned to say. “Well, nobody's asking you to look alone.”

“But I _am_ looking alone,” Bec argued back. “And you know what looking at this does.”

“I know what happens if you don't look, and so do you,” Jack said surely.

“ **You shouldn’t let him talk to you like that,** ” The snake softly hissed.

He had it with the serpent’s constant interruptions and Bec sighed softly in frustration before muttering back. “I have to.”

“You have to what?” Jack asked with a furrowed brow.

Bec looked back at the agent, horrified that he actually said that out loud and brushed it off. “I can make myself look, but the thinking is shutting down.”

Jack casted his eyes up at the mutilated angel and then back to the empath. “What is it about this one?”

“It isn't this one. It's all of them. It's the next one. It's the one that I know is coming after that.”

“You wanna go back to your lecture hall? Read about this stuff on Tattlecrime.com?”

Bec snapped. “ _No,_ I don’t. But that may be what I have to do. This is bad for me.”

“I'm not your father, Bec. I'm not gonna tell you what you ought to do.”

The empath huffed. “Seems like that's exactly what you're gonna do.”

Jack sighed and stepped towards the shorter man. “You go back to your classroom. When there's killing going on that you could've prevented, it will sour your classroom forever.”

Bec nodded. “Maybe. And then maybe I'll find a job as a dance instructor or… something that involves less of _this_.”

He motioned to the swinging body with hand but couldn’t bare to look at it again. Jack studied the empath without saying anything before raising his eyebrows. “You wanna quit? Quit.”

The agent abruptly turned and walked out of the barn, leaving Bec alone with the body. The younger man stood there in silence for a moment, reeling from the confrontation, debating on how to proceed next. The rustle of hay in the bar drew his attention behind him however and revealed the Angel Maker barely an arm's length from him instead of hanging from hooks in the rafters. Bec’s hand immediately went to the gun on his belt as he stumbled back from the mutilated man that fell to his knees in front of him, delirious from the tumor and the loss of blood but still gripping a knife in his hand.

Elliot looked up at the empath and forced out through his quickening breaths. “I see what you are.”

He could feel the snake coil behind his left boot, hissing loudly at the killer on his knees before him. Ignoring it, Bec asked. “What do you see?”

What Elliot could see was the flesh of the empath’s face and hands being stripped away and distorted by ripples of flames and smoke. The mark of evil, _the mark of a sinner_.

He mumbled up the younger man. “Inside. I can bring it out of you.”

“Not all the way out.”

Elliot coughed. “I can give you... The majesty of true becoming.”

The Angel Maker began to fall forward but before he reached the floor or made a sound, he vanished from sight. Bec scanned around the barn, noticing that even the snake had disappeared, before looking back up at the rafters to see the same body still swaying slightly from its hooks. A trickle of blood made its way over his mouth again.

 

Bec walked with purpose up to Jack’s office only hesitating briefly when he finally reached the door but he entered anyway to see the agent sitting against one of the visitor chairs pressed against the back wall of the office. He said nothing, Jack only sparing him a brief glance as he entered.

“What do you want, Bec?” The agent asked.

Bec quietly took a seat in the chair next to Jack’s. “I'm gonna sit here until you're ready to talk. You don't have to say a word until you're ready, but... I'm not going anywhere until you do.”

They sat in silence. Bec didn’t hold his breath waiting for a response any time soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NBC's Hannibal, nor its script and characters, and I don't make any money off of this fic. I rewrote it for me and a friend of mine purely for fun as a way to explore the events but with our original characters and just decided to start posting it.
> 
> New chapter every Wednesday!!


	6. “Entrée”

Meticulously, Huesyth unbuttoned Bec’s flannel. Making the empath's body hum as the doctor ran his careful hand down the expanse of the revealed tan skin beneath the garment. Only pushing aside enough to get to the gorgeously sculpted body hidden under the shapeless fabric. Despite his regular appearance with his heavy jackets and too big flannels, Bec’s body was all firm muscle and supple curves.

Huesyth, unable to fight off his growing need, leaned over him to begin kissing Bec’s torso. His lips traveled from the empath’s collarbone, over his chest, and finally ended at the soft trail of hair leading down from the empath’s navel to the waistband of his jeans.

Bec’s lips parted and eyes closed as a pleased sigh escaped him. He was lost in the sensations the doctor gave him when he dragged the tips of his canines impatiently against the tender skin of Bec’s lower stomach. He finally unbuckled the younger man’s belt and tossed it aside without a care. He looked down as Huesyth began tugging his pants and boxers down to the middle of his thighs, just enough to let his aching cock spring free from the confines it had been making a mess of with precum. Huesyth purred at the sight of the flushed flesh before him and even ran his tongue over his lips to wet them.

The doctor matched eyes with Bec again and the sight stripped Huesyth’s lungs of his breath. Bec had never looked more sinfully debauched with his bare chest heaving, a beautiful blush reddening his face his skin all the way down to his cock, and his curling hair was falling over one of his eyes. Swallowing heavily, Bec nodded, giving his consent for whatever the doctor wished to do to him.

Huesyth hummed deep in his throat, rubbing his hands soothingly over the empath’s thighs in an attempt to calm his nerves. He moved forward to lick a single, long stripe up from the base to the tip of Bec’s dick, causing the empath’s body to spasm and a surprised moan to tear itself from him. Bec’s head fell back against the top of the desk with a dull thud and Huesyth felt one of his hands come up to rub unsurely against his cheek.

He nuzzled at the offered hand before sucking at the precum forming at the tip of his lover’s cock. Pressing the flat of his tongue against the slit to pull another stuttering moan from the beautiful creature he had laid out in front of him.

“H-Huesyth,” Bec whimpered.

Huesyth wanted to hear just how many noises Bec could make. Finally, he hunkered down, sliding the entire length of Bec’s dick into his mouth until he could feel the tip hitting the back of his throat. The empath’s body tightened up like a cord as he moaned and whined almost sweetly at the onslaught of feeling. The wet heat of the doctor’s mouth pulling off with slick sounds that filled the office space before he sunk back down at a steady pace was quickly overwhelming the empath’s sensitive body.

Bec had no idea what to do with his hands but noticed through his haze that the sounds he was making were not only growing more desperate but also far louder than he could control. He started to bring his hand up to his face to bite into his fist, a pathetic attempt to stifle the sounds, but Huesyth swiftly reached up to drag his dull nails across Bec’s sides.

The empath hissed through clenched teeth, the mix of pain and pleasure making an oddly satisfying combination, and grabbed at the doctor’s wrist instead. He peered down only to be met with the sharp eyes of Huesyth, mouth still stuffed with his cock but nevertheless intimidating. Even with just a simple look, Bec could recognize that the doctor was requesting he not muffle himself so he brought his other hand down to run his fingers shyly over Huesyth’s shaved head. He was rewarded by a deep purr from Huesyth’s throat and a cleverly talented tongue pressing against the length of his dick when it returned to his mouth.

Soon, Bec’s thighs were nearly caging Huesyth as the empath cradled his head against his crotch. He wasn’t even paying attention to what his body was doing any more or the sounds that were no doubt being pulled from him with every too hard suck or light scrape of teeth against his cock. The words of praise or begging were jumbled together with desperate moans and whimpers for more. Until finally, his head hit the desk again, body tightening and toes curling in his boots, as he released into the doctor’s mouth with a loud cry.

When Bec’s body began to relax, Huesyth pulled off of his cock, another overstimulated groan dripping from the empath’s mouth. The doctor licked his lips again as he pulled Bec’s pants back up. Buttoning and zipping them for him before once again kissing his way up the younger man’s sensitive body. He nipped and licked lightly here and there before finally finding himself kissing Bec’s plump lips. The empath wrapped his arms loosely around the Huesyth’s neck as the taller man pulled him up from the desk so that he could sit back in his office chair with Bec straddling his lap.

The empath went willingly with this change in position, his body loose and positionable in anyway Huesyth chose in his post-orgasm haze. His shirt was still open and Bec had his bare heaving chest pressed against Huesyth’s clothed body.

“T-That was…” Bec began but trailed off as his brain seemingly couldn’t catch up with what he wanted to say.

“Pleasurable, I hope,” Huesyth answered, nuzzling his face against Bec’s damp hair.

“ _Yes_. Yes… _very_ pleasurable,” Bec mumbled into Huesyth’s shoulder.

The doctor grinned at Bec’s rambling but his smile was wiped from him when the piercing sound of a cell phone's ringtone cut through the dream-like scene. Huesyth couldn’t help the growl that bubbled up from his throat when Bec separated himself from him, searching around for the source of the noise.

“W-Where’s my phone?” Bec asked, sliding up to his feet but wobbling on his still jelly legs.

“Your jacket,” Huesyth stated, suppressing his anger long enough to stick a hand out to steady the shaky empath. “Right pocket.”

Bec muttered his thanks as he found the jacket on the floor by Huesyth’s desk, digging through the pockets to finally fish out the loud phone and answer the call. “Hello? Yeah, Jack, it’s me.”

The empath pulled his flannel back on straight, buttoning it up slowly with his phone tucked against his shoulder and Huesyth mourned the loss of the smooth skin that had been revealed to him. He should have marked the younger man up more when he had the chance.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m not… busy,” Bec said unsurely, casting a sympathetic glance back at the doctor as he smoothed out his clothing. “Where do you need me? Ok, I’ll meet you there.”

With a sigh, Bec slid the phone away from his face and hung up the call before pulling his jacket and glasses back on. “I-I have to go. We got a case.”

“I understand, Bec,” Huesyth soothed. He reached out and grasped the shorter man’s hand, pulling him back over so he could pull him down for another slow kiss. Drawing it out for as long as he could before the empath inevitably had to pull back, running his hands over the doctor’s cheeks.

“Thank you for this, Huesyth,” Bec mumbled. “I’m sorry I have to leave. I don’t want to-”

Huesyth hushed him softly. “It’s alright, my dear. Go find your murderers.”

Bec rubbed his nose against Huesyth’s before hesitantly pulling away, leaving the doctor alone in the office.

 

**BALTIMORE STATE HOSPITAL FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE**

The FBI sedan approached the grim and gothic asylum erected out of the ground. They parked at its steps and got out to walk the rest of the way as a couple of security guards passed them, looking shaken. The dark atmosphere definitely began to sour the good mood that Bec had been in.

“Well, thanks to Freddie Lounds,” Jack began to explain as they moved up the front steps. “There's an unconfirmed story floating out there that The Chesapeake Ripper's already in custody.”

“Am I here to confirm?” Bec asked. “Fact-checking for Freddie Lounds…”

“You're fact-checking for me,” Jack corrected before the empath could further question him.

The empath looked up at the barred windows that lined the outside of the building. “I always feel a little nervous going into these places.”

“Why's that?”

Swallowing heavy, Bec said. “I’m afraid they won't let me out.”

Jack replied. “Don't worry. I won't leave you here.”

The younger man sighed and muttered. “Yeah, not today.”

They were ushered through the security process before being led deeper into the building. It was just as intimidating as the outside. Some parts were sterile looking and medical but other parts were stone walls and metal caging, showed age and weathering. There were winding and confusing halls that made Bec’s head spin. On the outside, it looked like a castle but on the inside, it looked like an old prison instead of a hospital.

The only thing worse than the prison was its warden. The hospital administrator that they were led to who’s smirk had an arrogant edge to it. Once they were brought into his office, the besuited man’s eyes lit up with a giddy glint as he offered a hand for Bec to shake.

“Dr. Bloom just called to tell me about you, Mr. Reyes... or should I call you Dr. Reyes?” Bec pulled his hand back from the doctor’s and stuffed it into his pants pocket. Just listening to Dr. Frederick Chilton talk made the pain in Bec’s brain flare up again.

“I'm not a doctor,” Bec corrected.

Narrowing his eyes slightly, Chilton told. “You're not FBI either. That's a temporary identification.”

Jack stepped in finally to shake Chilton’s hand as well. “Mr. Reyes teaches at the academy.”

“Ah, a teacher. Please, gentlemen, take a seat.”

Jack thanked him as they sat in the offered chairs while Chilton behind his large his desk. “Dr. Chilton, we're going to need to see the crime scene while it's still relatively undisturbed.”

“I assure you, for something so disturbing, it is quite undisturbed.”

Bec cut in to ask. “Why was a nurse left alone with a prisoner in a high-security psychiatric hospital?”

“For past the two years since he was brought here, Gideon has behaved perfectly and gave every appearance of cooperating with attempts at therapy. As dictated by our present administrator, security around him was slightly... Relaxed,” Chilton explained before he leaned forward to put his elbows against his desk. “I cannot help but feel responsible for what happened. He sat directly across from me and I had no idea what he was hiding. And now one of our staff is _dead_.”

“I understand, Doctor,” Jack sympathized. “Mr. Reyes is going to need to see the crime scene with as much privacy as you can provide.”

“Oh, yes, that thing you do,” Chilton’s face lit up with a breathy laugh. He was certainly a slimy individual but it wasn’t the same kind of glint that Bec found behind the eyes of the evil that he hunted. Nevertheless, the empath narrowed his eyes at the doctor in confusion. “You're quite the topic of conversation in the psychiatric circles, Mr. Reyes.”

He knew what the doctor was trying to imply but Bec tipped his head to the side slightly, mimicking the same puzzlement. “Am I?”

“Uh, yes. A unique cocktail of personality disorders and neuroses that make you a highly skilled profiler.”

A small scoff escaped the younger man and Jack asserted before Bec could say something he regretted. “ _He's_ not here to be analyzed.”

“Perhaps he should be,” Chilton added without taking his eyes off of Bec, still smiling like he was clever. “We are woefully short of material on your sort of _thing_ , Mr. Reyes. Would you mind speaking to some of the staff?”

He stood from his chair and Jack tried to cut in again. “Doctor-”

“If you’re that uncomfortable with my being here, Dr. Chilton, I can certainly leave.”

Caught off guard by the response, Chilton paused in his steps and he could even see Jack raise an eyebrow at him out his peripheral vision. “No, no, no. Not this trip. Maybe a special visit.”

Bec stood suddenly, stiffly now. “Thank you for the offer, Dr. Chilton. I'd like to see the crime scene now.”

Smiling thinly, Chilton finally escorted them around the many corridors towards the crime scene in the medical ward. As they walked, Jack began speaking again. “So, Gideon was restrained?”

“Handcuffed to the gurney,” Chilton explained without looking back. “He concealed a fork tine in the palm of his hand and used it to pick the lock.”

“Where is he now?” Bec asked from behind the two men.

“In his cell. You'll note the removal of organs and the abdominal mutilations are all consistent with The Chesapeake Ripper.”

They came to a stop at one of the locked automatic doors and awaited entrance from the guard on the other side as Jack commented. “So is the brutalization of the corpse, but that doesn't change the fact that The Ripper is still out there.”

Chilton raised an eyebrow at the older agent, for once not smiling. “Jack, what I'm about to show you certainly suggests otherwise.”

The door buzzer went off as it slid open, allowing the men to enter but Jack fell back slightly to address Bec. “Dr. Chilton consulted on the case when we failed to catch The Ripper after his last series of murders.”

That would certainly explain the constant referencing of The Ripper despite Bec assuming that was an entirely different case.

The door closed behind them and they continued down another corridor to an open door that Chilton was waiting for them in front of. They filed into the room to see the nurse’s body at the center. She was impaled on the broken frames of several privacy curtains and IV drip stands that had been fashioned into spears. They protruded from bloody wounds over the entire canvas of her body and kept her propped up at least a foot from the ground.

Without the other’s taking their eyes off the body, Chilton spoke up from the doorway. “The reason you failed and kept failing to capture The Chesapeake Ripper... Was because I already had him.”

 

_The killer was wheeled in on a gurney, an oxygen mask strapped over his face to assist in his breathing. The nurse ripped open his shirt and attached ECG tab electrodes to his chest to study his heartbeat._

_His fingers found the sharpened tine embedded in his hand and slid it out from between the layers of skin. Jamming it into the handcuffs keeping him attached to the gurney without opening his eyes._

_The nurse turned away to set up the IV drip stand but the heart monitor behind her suddenly flatlined. She looked back to her patient only to be met by her killer. He struck her in the throat hard enough to stifle any scream she could make, sending her flying back into the metal shelvings. Pulling her up by the scruff of her hospital scrubs before throwing her to the floor, her eyes wide with fear as she struggled to scream and scramble away. The killer quickly kneeled over her in order to jam his thumbs into her sockets until the eyes within were nonexistent._

_He stood again, hands slicked with blood and the nurse began crawling blindly across the floor in an attempt to escape. Moving in on one of the IV drips, the killer removed the top half from its adjustable stand and stood before the blinded nurse. She grabbed at his pant legs when they blocked her path._

_The killer raised the impromptu spear over his head and drove it violently down-_

Bec took in a deep breath, blinking profusely when his eyes were assaulted by the sun coming through the windows. He tried to shake off the ugliness that his imagination evoked but was only left with more when a droplet of blood hit the linoleum at his feet. Quickly tugging a tissue from his pocket to staunch the bleeding of his nose, he realized that Jack and Chilton were still standing in the doorway staring at him.

“As far as we know, it's been over two years since the Chesapeake Ripper killed?” He asked as he shoved his glasses back onto his face.

Noticing how uncomfortable the younger man was, Jack moved farther into the room. “That's correct.”

“When was Gideon admitted?”

Jack answered again. “Almost two years ago as well.”

 

Bec was asked to return the next day, this time with Alana instead of Jack, and again they sat on the other side of the man’s massive desk that served as something similar to a moat. The empath wasn’t interested in anything that Chilton had to say if it didn’t pertain to the dead nurse he had on display in his hospital so he stood at the middle window of the man’s office, staring out into the front area as the two doctors conversed.

They went into a back and forth about Abel and his reason for being in the hospital to begin with. Apparently, he had butchered his own wife and her family on Thanksgiving two years previous which noticeably made Alana’s lip curl when Chilton mentioned that Abel had been getting quite a lot of marriage requests ever since. She was far more familiar with the man’s case then Bec was, apparently having had two previous sessions with him during his trial. Finally fed up with listening to Chilton chatter, Alana left the office first to conduct her own separate interview with Gideon but when Alana returned, it was Bec’s turn.

When Bec approached the cell near the middle of the long hall, Abel Gideon seemed to have complete control over himself. Unlike the rest of the people on his cellblock who paced profusely or talked to the walls, his speech never left a pleasant chat volume. The most he moved was when he casually walked the length of his cell as he talked about his murders. He was calm, sarcastic, and narcissistic. The empath could see how someone like Chilton would think that he was of the same caliber as The Ripper considering he showed all the signs of a psychopath.

But something didn’t feel right. Bec didn’t get the same skin-crawling sensation that he had when he was brought to the field where the girl had been skewered on a stag’s head. He couldn’t see the clear disregard for human life like The Ripper’s treatment of her lungs as if she was a fine pig.

This just seemed to be another psycho to Bec, one in a long line. Even when he looked the empath in the eye, Bec couldn’t buy into the fact that Abel believed whole hardily that he was indeed The Ripper.

 

The last couple of days had been particularly irritating as Bec had been too busy poking about in the minds of killers for Huesyth to see him. Even the doctor’s other patients were doing nothing to keep his attention or keep his mind from wandering back to the empath. It was dark out though and he could finally retreat back to his own house to be disgruntled in privacy. Huesyth folded his overcoat over his arm as he flicked off the remaining lights in his office, opening the door to leave but finding Jack sitting in his waiting room.

“Jack,” Huesyth said calmly. Far more calmly than his brain was in that moment. “Come in.”

Backstepping, the doctor flipped the lights back on as Jack stood and shuffled inside. “I'm sorry. Um... I was just, uh…”

“In the neighborhood,” Huesyth finished for him.

With a shrug, Jack nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”

Huesyth closed the office door behind them before asking. “How is Bella?”

“Yeah, that's why I was in the neighborhood. She's fine. Well, she tells me that she's fine and she tells me when she's not.”

Jack turned to the doctor as if waiting for an answer and Huesyth cocked his head slightly. “Do you expect me to tell you more?”

With a disgruntled sigh, Jack relented. “Look, Bella's at a NATO conference. I can't talk to her. She's working. I doubt I could talk to her if she was here.”

“About her condition?”

“Yeah. About her _cancer_ ,” Jack snapped, louder the normal. Huesyth couldn’t help the slight flinch that made his face twitch but the agent didn’t notice as he turned away to huff into the air.

“About her dying. She doesn't want to talk to me about it.”

“I am prohibited from talking about it…” Huesyth reminded the older agent. “Doctor-patient confidentiality.”

Jack looked only slightly over his shoulder back at the doctor. “You talk to me about Bec Reyes.”

“Bec Reyes is not officially my patient. We have conversations.”

The agent turned fully back to Huesyth as he furrowed his brow. “What do you consider this?”

“Desperate coping.”

That apparently wasn’t the answer that Jack wanted. With a disappointed shake of his head, he moved away from the doctor as if to avoid shouting some more. “You don't think I have a right to know what's happening with my wife?”

Huesyth approached the agent again. “You have every right to know what's happening, but not from me.”

“Well, I'm not just gonna stand outside my marriage and watch this happen. If that's what she wants, too bad. She married the wrong guy for that.”

Huesyth paused. It was almost like he forgot how viciously loyal Jack was to Bella. “I’ll offer one insight. She doesn't think she married the wrong man.”

It seemed to soothe the agent but not enough to calm the grief in his voice. “I… I can't stop thinking about when my wife is gonna die. I look at her side of the bed and I think, ‘is she gonna die there?’ I can't stop thinking about it, you understand? I can't stop.”

He sat down heavily on the chaise longue to keep himself from falling over and Huesyth asserted. “You're dreading the loss of your wife.”

Jack nodded without looking back at the doctor. “Yes... And I'm thinking about other losses too.”

This intrigued Huesyth more than it saddened him. He laid his jacket across the back of the lounge before taking a seat on the end that Jack wasn’t occupying.

“What other losses are you dreading?” The face that Jack made seemed to say that he wasn’t ready to say anything about it so instead, Huesyth continued. “Jack, you can't save her. She won't let you. The cancer won't let you. Who else couldn't you save?”

 

The next day, Jack stared absently at the corpse of the nurse as she laid out on the morgue table, unaware that Bec was studying him more closely than the body. The scientists moved around the body.

“There's no detectable consistency with The Ripper victims,” Beverly started. “He doesn't hunt exclusively within his own ethnic group. He's killed all creeds, colors, men, and women.”

“She has the _exact_ same wound pattern as the last-known victim of The Chesapeake Ripper. I mean exact,” Brian said, gesturing to the wounds across the nurse.

Jack interrupted. “We never found a body for his last known victim.”

“Then the victim before that,” Brian corrected.

Bec added from the side. “I see The Ripper, but I don't... _feel_ The Ripper. This is plagiarism.”

The agent looked back at the empath. “We never made the wound patterns for any of The Ripper's victims public.”

The empath furrowed his brow. That didn’t make any sense considering Abel had to have found out about the other murders somehow. He couldn’t have just made it up and got lucky that it was almost exactly the same as the real Ripper’s.

Bec sighed. “Well, maybe he is The Ripper. I don't know. But if he's a plagiarist, the _real_ Chesapeake Ripper is gonna make sure everybody knows it.”

Jack sighed heavily because he knew that the younger man was right.

 

Out of nowhere, a shaken Jack called everyone back into the lab early the next morning. Beverly was sat at her workstation, typing away at her computer while Jimmy and Brian hovered around her. Bec stood across from Jack on the other side of the table between them.

“I'm hooked into every carrier database and telephone provider in the United States and I’ve got nothing,” Beverly explained, looking back at the older agent.

“Look again,” Jack demanded for the third time.

“I did my agains,” Beverly said back. “And my again and again and agains. I can't find any electronic trace of any call made to your home at 2:46 AM.”

“I am _telling_ you that the phone rang,” Jack retorted.

“Did it wake your wife up?” Brian asked from the side. He obviously already believed that Jack was hearing things and the empath could see the agent’s face twist slightly in agitation.

“I was alone,” Jack answered simply.

Jimmy added in an attempt to defuse the situation, noting Jack’s growing frustration. “Whoever made that call could have made it from that little box outside your house or a junction in your neighborhood. Either way, there would be no trace signal to track.”

“You're _sure_ it was Miriam Lass?” Beverly questioned.

“It was Miriam,” The agent replied surely.

Just to dig his grave a little deeper, Brian spoke up again. “You haven't heard her voice in two years, Jack.”

Jack looked back at the younger man with a furrowed brow. “You gonna continue to question me on this, Z? If so, maybe I should ask you to leave the room while it's still safe for you to be here,” Brian raised his hand in defense but shut up quick. “The Chesapeake Ripper recorded Miriam Lass two years ago as he was killing her. Last night, he called my house at 2:46 AM. He played that recording for me.”

“Well then we know The Chesapeake Ripper is _not_ Doctor Gideon,” Bec stated. “Because the call wasn't made from the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.”

“That we would've been able to trace,” Beverly confirmed.

“Are you certain it was a recording?” Bec asked the agent. “Jack, you said yourself there is no body.”

“Miriam Lass is _dead_ ,” Jack snapped, looking about at each of the people in the room. “The Chesapeake Ripper is making it very clear that someone is plagiarizing his work!”

“It was 2:46 in the morning, Jack,” Brian began to coddle from the corner of shame Jack put him in. “You're in a deep sleep, you're roused, you're disoriented. You might not even know you're still asleep.”

The agent, yet again, narrowed his eyes at the scientist. “I know when I'm awake.”

 

Bec returned to his empty lecture hall that afternoon to escape the constant arguments but his head flared with a roaring headache. It pulsed painfully behind his eyelids. He ran a hand over his tired eyes and sweaty face, idly wondering how many aspirins he could down before he finally bled to death. But a deep hissing broke the relative silence. He glanced up down the entrance corridor to the classroom and through his blurry vision, the snake in its all its nightmarish glory began slithering down the hall towards him.

“Bec?” A voice asked.

The empath startled awake ever so slightly, lost in a daydream. Instead of the black snake, he was met with Alana and Jack moving down the corridor to him. Which only made him wish that it was the serpent from his nightmares instead.

“You looked like you were dreaming,” Alana said.

With a sigh, the empath leaned back in his chair. “I was, uh, thinking about something else.”

They approached his desk and Jack leaned against the top of it. “Well, here's something for you to think about. We have a direct way of communicating with The Chesapeake Ripper, and we'd like to see if we can push him.”

“Push him toward what?” Bec asked with a raised brow.

Alana explained. “We might be able to influence him to become visible.”

“If we can enrage him,” Jack completed.

The empath narrowed his eyes at the agent. “To what purpose, Jack? I-I don't see what you're asking.”

“Do you think there's a way to push the Chesapeake Ripper and focus his attention?”

Bec huffed in confusion. “Well, he's already focused on Gideon as his adversary. Don't fool around.”

“Gideon is just a tabloid rumor right now. We think we need to make him the truth.”

“You might push The Ripper to _kill_ again just to prove he isn't in a hospital for the criminally insane.”

“I have to push, Bec,” Jack asserted.

Bec raised an eyebrow at the agent, leaning forward. “Are you thinking about getting into bed with Freddie Lounds?”

“You yourself know it's the best way to bait the real Chesapeake Ripper.”

No. No, he didn’t know that. It had never even crossed his mind.

 

“Morning, Agent Crawford,” The redhead greeted, sticking her hand out for Jack to shake as the three entered the conference room. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“Miss Lounds,” He offered, warm and welcoming, shaking the offered hand before gesturing to Alana. “This is Dr. Alana Bloom. She's one of our psychiatric consultants.”

The two women shook hands over the table as well before Jack mentioned Bec. “I believe you know Bec Reyes.”

With a fake smile, Freddie offered a hand to Bec as well. “Mr. Reyes. So good to see you.”

Bec simply stared, inscrutable, before taking a seat at the table. Freddie pulled her hand back, unbothered by the cold shoulder she was given by the empath. The rest of those who were standing sat down and Jack began his sugar coating. “Miss Lounds. You have all the qualities of a good reporter. You have intelligence, guts, and a good eye. So how is it that you wound up where you are?”

“Where I wound up being in criminal justice journalism?” Freddie questioned.

“Criminal justice journalism being a euphemism for tabloid reporting,” Bec muttered. More to himself than to them but of course they heard.

“You ran an unconfirmed story about The Chesapeake Ripper,” Jack continued, paying no mind to the empath’s seething. “What I want is for you to confirm it.”

It seemed to immediately pique Freddie’s interest. “An exclusive story would be a coup.”

“Mm, yes, it would. And you would get the satisfaction of seeing the Los Angeles Times, the sanctified Washington post, and even the holy New York times run copyrighted material under your byline, with a picture credit.”

Bec cut in, leaning forward to address the redhead. “What's against you, and by association us, is that your brand of journalism is obnoxious and therefore disliked.”

“Yes. That is an obstacle,” Freddie quipped. “I tried to get an interview with Dr. Gideon but I was denied. Evidently some trouble with my euphemism.”

“I'm friendly with the new chief of staff. I can get you an interview,” Alana offered just to sweeten the deal.

That seemed to make Freddie start to question, the cheeky behavior was starting to make sense. “Not to snap bubblegum and crack wise, but what's my angle? Is he The Chesapeake Ripper or do you just want me to tell everybody that he is?”

“He could be,” Alana replied. “And certain personalities are attracted to certain professions.”

“Do you know what profession psychopaths disproportionately gravitate to?” Jack asked Freddie.

“CEOs, lawyers, the clergy.”

“Number five on the list is surgeons,” The older agent reminded.

“I know the list.”

Bec cut in again. “Well, then you know what number six is.”

Freddie looked over at him. “Journalists. Know what number seven is, Mr. Reyes?”

The empath paused before mumbling. “Law enforcement.”

Freddie smiled, looking carefully over the three sitting across from her. “Here we are, a bunch of psychopaths helping each other out.”

 

_‘His name is Dr. Abel Gideon, and strong evidence has surfaced that he's far more than a mild-mannered surgeon who cruelly murdered his wife. Maybe, just maybe, Gideon is the most sought-after serial killer at large, a killer who's eluded the FBI for years and has baffled their most gifted profilers. That serial killer? None other than The Chesapeake Ripper. This would explain why The Ripper has been silent for more than two years-’_

‘HOW THE RIPPER RIPS: AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW’ was plastered over an image of Dr. Gideon in his cell. Huesyth huffed softly to himself over the ridiculousness of the article. He shook his head with a disapproving tsk-tsk-tsk sound.

 

It wasn’t long after Freddie got her interview and posted her article that Jack got another call that he was sure was from The Ripper. Unlike the first call though, this one was able to be traced directly back to Jack’s bedroom phone. He pulled the scientists and Bec to his house to process the room before he blew a gasket out of anger.

“In my house. In my bedroom. Where my wife sleeps,” Jack seethed as he paced.

Jimmy pulled a strip of transfer tape from the phone. “Got a lot of usable prints. Nice detail too. I got three distinct beauties here. Yours, your wife's, and presumably The Chesapeake Ripper.” He set them into a scanner to see if any of them were in the database.

“I can't imagine The Chesapeake Ripper would start leaving prints at his crime scenes now,” Brian commented.

Beverly flipped of the blacklight she was using over the bed, seemingly hesitant in revealing her findings. “The Ripper put his head on your wife's pillow.”

“Now somebody's sleeping in my bed,” Jack fumed.

“There he is…” Beverly tweezed a fine hair from the pillowcase. “Or there _she_ is. Was Miriam Lass a blonde?”

Cocking his head slightly, Jack nodded. “Yes.”

“I pulled her fingerprints from the Vicap database, Jack, and I got a match,” Jimmy confirmed.

“She's _dead_ ,” Jack reminded harshly. “She wasn’t here.”

“Jack,” Bec said and the agent turned to face the empath. “Did Miriam Lass know where you live?”

“If she wanted to know, she was smart enough to find out.”

“Could've told The Chesapeake Ripper before he killed her. Did you know that you were sending her after him?”

“I sent her after _information_ ,” Jack explained.

“Whoever made that call thinks you were close to Miriam Lass and feel responsible for her death.”

 

Huesyth could hear Chilton’s proud voice all the way in the kitchen. He could only imagine the unimpressed face that Alana was shooting him across the table. To save her from being alone with him any longer, the doctor finally entered the dining room with their meals and Chilton’s eyes lit up. “Ah, dinner is served.”

First, he placed one of the plates in front of Alana. “Inspired by Auguste Escoffier, we are having Langue d'agneau en Papillotte, served with a sauce of duxelles and oyster mushrooms.”

He placed the next one before Chilton and then his own before Alana commented. “I don't think I've ever tried tongue.”

“It was a particularly chatty lamb,” Huesyth joked which pulled a laugh from Chilton.

“It smells delicious,” Alana complimented.

Chilton unfolded his napkin to put in his lap. “The Romans used to kill flamingos just to eat their tongues.”

“Don't give me ideas,” Huesyth quipped. “Your tongue is particularly feisty and as this evening has already proven, it's nice to have an old friend for dinner.”

This drew an uneasy chuckle from the other man and Huesyth smiled despite the contempt that he held for the other man. Alana had nothing to say about it and they began to eat their meals in almost silence until the female doctor finally broke it to say.

“I see three possibilities.” Chilton hummed around the wine he was drinking to show he was listening. “Gideon is The Chesapeake Ripper, or he just thinks he is, or he knows he isn't.”

“He is. He knows he is. So do I,” Chilton replied stubbornly, setting his glass aside.

“Did you discuss The Chesapeake Ripper's crimes with Dr. Gideon _before_ he murdered the night nurse?” Huesyth asked.

“Mmhmm,” Chilton agreed. “When I began to suspect what he was. Fearing he might be exposed may have, uh, spurred him into action.”

After a pause, Alana continued and the doctor could see where she was heading. “Is it possible you inadvertently planted the suggestion in Gideon's mind that he was The Ripper?”

The other man narrowed his eyes at her. “You're not suggesting coercive persuasion?”

“No, I said inadvertently.”

Chilton seemed to notice the line of questioning. “Psychic driving is unethical,” He explained, taking another bite of his food.

Huesyth added without looking up. “But reasonable in certain circumstances.”

The other doctor’s paused to look at the taller man before Alana asked. “What circumstances?”

“It may have been useful trying to remind Gideon he's The Chesapeake Ripper,” Chilton ‘mmhmm’d in agreement but Huesyth turned to him briefly. “ _If_ he repressed those memories. But he seems to have come to that awareness all by himself.”

“Dr. Bloom,” Chilton said firmly. “If he has been unethically manipulated somehow, I need to know. I would love your insight.”

Alana gave the other doctor another unimpressed look and seemed like she was about to say something else when Huesyth cut in. “Dr. Chilton, would you care to assist me with dessert?”

“Pleasure,” Chilton replied without taking his eyes off Alana.

He followed Huesyth into the kitchen after the taller doctor cleared the plates from their meal. Huesyth let Chilton set up the teacups while he peeled grapes to use the skins as garnish.

“I love Norton grapes. Same color inside as outside. Peel it... And the flesh is also purple, not like other grapes where flesh is white and the color comes from the skin.”

Chilton watched from across the counter and chuckled lightly. “A grape with nothing to hide.”

“If I were in your position, I would have attempted psychic driving. Perhaps you already have. I promise I am much more forgiving of the unorthodox than Dr. Bloom,” Chilton looked up at Huesyth again and the taller doctor raised an eyebrow at him. “Shall we?”

 

Beverly and Bec approached the abandoned observatory, miscellaneous FBI agents scattered about to scan the area. “The last call was made to Jack's cell from a disposable phone traced here... Or within 100 feet of here.”

“What was Miriam Lass looking into before she disappeared?” Bec asked.

“Medical records,” Beverly answered. “If The Ripper was a surgeon, she thought he might've treated one of his victims.”

“Have they retraced her steps?”

Beverly shrugged. “The ones they could find. She made a jump somewhere they couldn't explain. You make those kinds of jumps too.”

“The evidence has to be there,” Bec reminded as they approached Jack at the entrance to the observatory.

Beverly continued. “Every surgeon that came into contact with any of The Ripper victims has been thoroughly vetted or currently under observation.”

“Including Dr. Gideon?” Bec asked.

“Dr. Gideon wasn't in my bedroom. The Chesapeake Ripper was,” Jack said as he drew his phone from his coat pocket. “The last call left something the others didn't… A phone number.”

Jack pressed called on the number and a tense moment passed with no sound before a distant ring emanated from within the building. They finally entered the building after Jack, empty and dusty, with abandoned astronomy equipment scattered around and covered in sheets. Sitting amongst the dust and sheets, however, was a severed human forearm with a phone caught in its grip, still ringing. They approached it slowly and tucked beneath the arm was a simple note that read: ‘what do you see?’

 

“What would be the benefit of making you believe your trainee was alive?” Huesyth asked.

Jack stared into the fireplace in the office, flames roaring. “Hope. The Ripper wanted to cloud my vision with hope.”

“It can sometimes be brave to allow yourself hope,” Huesyth offered.

“Not the false kind,” Jack responded solemnly, sipping from the drink Huesyth had offered him.

“Don't give up hope for your wife. Not yet. She's lost hope, which means you can't.”

“I don’t have any control over that.”

“ _Take_ control,” Huesyth told before pausing. “I'm sorry about your wife, Jack. I truly am. I believe the world is a better place with her in it. I am sorry about your trainee.”

“Whatever The Ripper was doing, it worked. I mean, I thought she was alive. For a moment, anyway. I actually let myself believe something that I knew was impossible.”

Huesyth leaned forward in his chair. “Talk to me about her. What was her name?”

He knew her name. He knew just who was haunting Jack’s mind but he wanted to hear more from the agent himself. But Huesyth’s mind drifted back to his first memory, his first interaction with the trainee.

_“My name is Miriam Lass,” The young woman introduced, still bright-eyed and cleanly kept. “I'm with the FBI. I would show you my credentials, but I'm actually just a trainee.”_

_“Never just a trainee,” Huesyth responded. “An agent in training. Please. Come in.”_

_He moves out of the way and she enters, Huesyth closing the door behind her._

_She continued. “I was hoping to talk to you about a former patient... Not necessarily one of yours, but someone you may have come into contact with when you were a practicing physician.”_

_Huesyth came to stand by her side and sighed. “I haven't practiced medicine for some time, but fortunately for you, I have a very good memory. Please.”_

_He motioned to an empty chair for her to sit in as he went to sit behind his desk. “His name was Jeremy Olmstead.”_

_“Perhaps not so good a memory after all. I don't recall a patient with that name, but it sounds familiar.”_

_She explained. “He was recently found murdered in his workshop. We think he may be a victim of The Chesapeake Ripper.”_

_He feigned surprise. “That's why he sounds familiar. It was all over the news.”_

_Miriam nodded. “He had two old scars on his thigh. Pathology checked with the local hospital. He had fallen out of a tree-blind five years ago while bow hunting... Stuck an arrow through his leg. The doctor of record was a resident surgeon, but you were on duty in the ER that night.”_

_Huesyth raised his eyebrows at the young woman. “I was?”_

_“Your name was on the admissions log.”_

_Huesyth looked away from her as if deep thought. “Let me think. You'll have to forgive me. I saw so many people in the ER, but not so many hunters.”_

_She nodded in understanding. “It's been a long time since the accident, but I thought you may remember if anything was fishy with the arrow wound.”_

_“If it's the gentleman I'm thinking of, I vaguely remember a fellow hunter bringing him in, but I recall very little else.”_

_Her disappointment was evident but she shrugged. “Figured it was a long shot.”_

_Miriam gathered her coat in her arms and stood, about to leave when Huesyth spoke up again. “I did keep detailed journals during those days. If you like, I can get them for you. Maybe you'll find something helpful.”_

_“That would be great… if you don’t mind.”_

_“Not at all. If you'll wait here, I'll be right back,” Huesyth stood, crossing the office so he could climb up the ladder to the second level._

_He could tell she began drifting around the room as he removed his shoes and jacket and began descending the ladder again without a sound. He moved upon her quickly, wrapping his hands around her throat and middle in a fast coil. Hoisting her off her feet enough for her to kick over the table she’d been gazing at. One of her hands was wrapped around his wrist as he cut off her breathing and the other was clawing at his face and head, thrashing about to try and throw him off balance despite being half his weight and height. Her movements begin slowing until she finally slumped against him from lack of blood flow._

By his side, Jack sighed, having finished his own story about Miriam. “She was a very brave young woman.”

Huesyth raised an eyebrow at the agent when he knew he couldn’t see it. When Jack finally left, the doctor wasted no time finally calling Bec to invite him over for drinks at Huesyth’s home.

 

“Sit on the bed, Bec,” He said gently and Bec sat back immediately.

Huesyth heard the sweet, surprised gasp as he knelt in front of the empath to undo his belt. Bec’s excitement for what was to come was evident. “Huesyth… oh, God…”

The doctor wanted to draw it out for as long as the younger man would let him, savor him as if it was the first and last time Bec would let him touch him. Huesyth pulled out the belt, undoing his zipper, then paused to massage Bec’s thighs slowly. He felt the other man’s eyes lingering on him, desperate for some kind of relief after all the drinking and teasing. Huesyth nipped at Bec’s lower stomach again in the way he knew made the empath tremble. He could tell that Bec seemed rather intrigued by his sharper than average canines that the doctor dragged against his sensitive skin.

Huesyth slid a hand down the front of Bec’s jeans and worn underwear to give his cock a slow stroke. He looked up and oh, his beautiful Bec Reyes. His eyes already closed in pleasure, biting into his lower lip, so eager for more.

He pushed up to kiss his lover again, Bec wrapping his arms around the doctor’s neck to pull him closer still. The empath moaned into his mouth, as loud as he wanted just as Huesyth had told him to be. Huesyth pulled his hand back and slipped them both under Bec’s thighs, pulling him further up onto the bed so that the doctor could lay on top of him.

“Can I…” Bec muttered between sloppy kisses. “I wanna feel you.”

Huesyth pulled back but only enough to begin kissing over his face. He knew what Bec wanted but it seemed so much sweeter to have Bec speak his wants for himself. “Feel me?”

“Too many clothes. Too many layers… Please?”

He purred into the empath’s ear before shifting to tug Bec’s pants and underwear off completely, discarding them somewhere on the floor, while Bec opened the buttons of his shirt. Leaning back on his knees, it was the first time in the doctor’s life that he hated the many layers he wore but he noticed how Bec’s hands began stilling with every layer that was removed. He finally pulled the undershirt over his head to leave his torso bare and Bec had stopped completely with only two more buttons to go. Huesyth tipped his head to the side, grinning down at Bec like a predator with its prey finally caught.

He undid the last two buttons for him which seemed to have brought Bec back to reality to remove his own shirt. Huesyth tossed it off the bed as well so he could bend down and kiss the empath again.

The doctor slowly kissed Bec’s neck, running his hands on the outside of his thighs and sides and every inch of revealed skin he could reach. He wanted to sink his teeth into the soft skin, enough to draw blood and bruise the flesh for days after. Instead, he nipped and licked only enough to leave small hickies just beneath Bec’s shirt collars.

Bec whimpered, hands moving over the expanse of Huesyth’s muscular back before finally digging his nails into the man’s shoulder blades. Huesyth gave a slightly harder bite and Bec gasped. “Ah, Huesyth… _please_.”

“Would you like more, Bec?”

“ _Yes._ Yes, Huesyth,” Bec whimpered, rubbing his hands across Huesyth’s neck to pull him in for another kiss.

Huesyth separated them to grab lubricant from the drawer of the side table. But it was made difficult as Bec began pressing his greedy mouth against the doctor’s neck and grinding his cock between their stomachs. The doctor growled when Bec nibbled at his collarbone, coming back to slide their lips together roughly. He bit at the empath’s lower lip enough to pull a whimper from the younger man but not any blood.

Before being lost to kiss, the taller man uncapped the lube and pouring a generous amount onto his fingers, nudging Bec’s legs to open more without separating from their lips. He brought the hand down and nudged at the tight ring of muscle, drawing a gasp from Bec.

“Shhh, my dear,” Huesyth soothed, kissing at Bec’s cheek and temple as he slid the first finger in. “You’re alright, lovely. Just breathe for me.”

At the sound of the praise, Bec whimpered, writhing and grinding filthily against his front while the doctor worked him open a finger at a time. As soon as he thought the empath was stretched enough to avoid injury, Huesyth pulled his hand back to pull down his own zipper. Finally, shoving down his trousers and underwear enough to pull his own cock from the tight confines of fabric.

Rubbing more lube over his own hard member, Huesyth peered back up at the younger man. Already, Bec looked completely wrecked, face flushed red and curls sticking to his forehead with his eyes hazy from lust. Huesyth chuckled deeply to himself and pressed a gentle kiss to Bec’s lips. “You’re so beautiful, Bec. Such a gorgeous, gorgeous man.”

“I want you inside me,” The empath mumbled.

Not one for denying a direct desire from the empath, he pushed himself into Bec. He groaned at the feeling, going slow, while Bec gasped softly at the intrusion. The doctor moved until he was fully sheathed inside his lover and Bec’s whimpers began to dissolve into persistent moans as he worked his hips down in small circles.

“Ah, God… Move, Huesyth. Please, _move_.”

Huesyth purred, hiking the empath’s hips up higher to begin thrusting into Bec’s tight heat. The younger man pulled him back into another deep kiss, a moan being dragged out of him with every roll of Huesyth’s hips. Huesyth moved a hand between them to stroke Bec’s neglected cock which made a fair amount of sounds and swearing spill from the younger man’s mouth. Huesyth ducked his head and licked at Bec’s shoulder, sucking another darker bruise into the tan skin.

Bec groaned and gave a desperate whisper. “ _Harder,_ Huesyth.”

The speed picked up, a rough drag of bodies together as Bec held the doctor close. Huesyth drug the nails of his other hand down Bec’s side again, breathing heavily into the empath’s shoulder, which caused the younger man’s body to lock up. He came over both of their stomachs with a sharp moan.

Huesyth wasted no time in shoving himself deeper and cumming inside his lover with a rough groan into Bec’s neck. He licked and kissed gently at Bec’s sensitive skin while the empath’s body twitched from overstimulation. He stayed still to allow Bec’s breathing to begin to slow, running his hands up the younger man’s sides as he held him close.

“So beautiful, Bec. You did _amazing_. So good for me,” Bec whimpered softly as Huesyth pulled out and began pawing at him when the doctor began to get up. “I need to get something to clean us up, darling. I’ll be back in just a second.”

Huesyth leaned down again just to press a kiss to Bec’s lips and had to force himself away when Bec tried to wrap his arms around the doctor’s neck to tug him back down onto the bed with him. The doctor moved as quickly as he could, adjusting his pants that he was still wearing and wetting a hand cloth with warm water before rushing back to the bedroom to find that Bec had already begun dozing off, naked and on top of the covers of Huesyth’s bed. The doctor chuckled softly as he washed Bec’s skin of their activities, gaining a content purr from his lover at the warmth of the cloth.

He pulled the covers up to wrap the empath in warmth, running his hand through Bec’s still damp curls when it evident that Bec had faded to unconsciousness.

 

His senses began to slowly come back to him and the first thing he noticed was that he was warm and face down in something soft and smooth against his bare skin. Already out of the ordinary as he’d usually wake up outside in the cold or wrapped in his scratchy sheets. He shifted slightly, burrowing his face deeper into the pillow he had his arms tucked under and his nose filled with the scent of cologne he could recognize but it wasn’t his own. The events of the previous night began creeping back to him and filled him with a warm sensation. Finally, Bec cracked his eyes open to see a lamp on the side table nearest to him was casting a soft light over him and also who he guessed to be whoever’s cologne he was smelling.

Huesyth was sitting in a chair at his bedside with a foot crossed over his other leg. Fully dressed in his shirt and pants compared to Bec’s still naked body and with a sketchpad open on his lap. He was completely focused on whatever he was sketching and hadn’t yet noticed his lover awakening.

Bec cleared his throat softly so he could chuckle. “God, you’re weird.”

Huesyth’s eyes immediately shot up to look at him and the doctor smiled back at him. “Good morning to you too, my dear.”

“Are you drawing me?” Bec asked.

Huesyth’s eyes went back his sketchpad as if fixing a line. “If you could see how gorgeous you look, you’d understand my desire to capture it on paper.”

Huesyth wasn’t exaggerating his statement. Bec was laid out on his stomach with his arms tucked under the pillow he had his face buried into. The arch of his back exposed as the sheets were tangled around his waist and legs and nothing else. His hair had dried back to its perfect curls but some were still stuck to his face, giving the illusion that he was still freshly fucked and was basking in the post orgasm bliss. The low light shaded and highlighted the features of his face, relaxed with sleep, that Huesyth adored so much. Everything was too perfect to not try to recreate on paper to the best of his abilities.

“My phone hasn’t gone off, right?” The empath asked softly.

“It has been blissfully silent,” Huesyth hummed. “Trust me, if it had gone off it would have woken you and the dead.”

“I still feel bad about that.” Bec gave a quiet laugh against the pillow. “We haven’t had the chance to talk at all because of the whole debacle with Gideon.”

“It was rather lonely without you, my dear,” Huesyth offered. “But Jack was keeping me busy as well.”

Bec raised an eyebrow at the taller man. “What was Jack having you do?”

“I feel as though it isn’t something I can willfully discuss with others or at least Jack would appreciate if I didn’t.”

The empath nodded in understanding, dropping the subject but continuing on from the case. “I left you behind just to go chase after the Chesapeake Ripper… and we didn’t even catch him. It was like chasing a ghost.” Huesyth’s eyes turned up to him slightly, curiously. “A rather jealous ghost, if you ask me.”

There was a soft, thoughtful sound from the doctor. “What makes you say that?”

“He was… noticeably pissed when we said that Gideon was the Ripper. You could see it written all over the game he was playing with Jack. Tugging him around on a string just to lead him to a dead end. It was almost cruel.”

“He believed he had been personally wronged by the FBI and so he decided to give Jack one of the deadliest things of all.” The empath raised an eyebrow at the taller man and Huesyth completed. “Hope.”

That caused Bec to avert his eyes from Huesyth, pausing only briefly before he asked. “Do you think the Ripper is hopeful for anything?”

Another longer pause stretched between them as the doctor seemed to think over the question. “I think he’s hopeful that he will avoid capture.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to catch him?”

Huesyth raised an eyebrow at the younger man before a slight smile graced his lips. “I’m hopeful.”

Softly, Bec chuckled again and settled back into his previous position with a deep, calm breath.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NBC's Hannibal, nor its script and characters, and I don't make any money off of this fic. I rewrote it for me and a friend of mine purely for fun as a way to explore the events but with our original characters and just decided to start posting it.
> 
> New chapter every Wednesday!!


	7. “Sorbet”

******F.B.I. ACADEMY, QUANTICO, VIRGINIA**

“The Chesapeake Ripper kills in sounders of three,” Bec explained to the classroom. It was dark enough in the lecture hall that all he could see were the shapes of the students. Their silhouettes.

“He did his first victims in nine days. Annapolis, Essex, Baltimore.” With each place listed, he switched the image on the projector to a new but equally disturbing crime scene photo one of the found bodies. “He didn't kill again for eighteen months. Then there was another sounder of three in as many days, all of them in Baltimore. I use the term ‘sounders’ because it refers to a small group of pigs. That's how he sees his victims. Not as people, not as prey. _Pigs_.”

The empath moved forward as he clicked to the next image. “Eleven months after the sixth victim, there was a seventh. Two days later, the eighth is killed in his workshop. Every tool on the pegboard where they hung was used against him, and, as with previous murders, organs were removed. The removal of organs and abdominal mutilations means someone with anatomical or surgical know-how. There... is a distinctive brutality.”

Another click of the slide. A woman’s face was displayed, an ID picture. Still living, still smiling. “An FBI trainee named Miriam Lass was investigating private medical records of all the known victims when she disappeared. She's believed to be the Ripper's ninth, but no trace of her was found.”

An arm appeared across the screen, sickly pale but still had the phone clutched in its death grip. The abrupt stump of the elbow was raw and dark red, irritated looking but the cut was clean. “Until recently, two years later, when her severed arm was discovered. Only because he wanted it to be. True to his established pattern, The Chesapeake Ripper has remained consistently theatrical.”

 

Bec began wondering as he finished applying his lipstick if it was too late to back out of this date but considering the work they’d put into just his look, he severely doubted it.

He pulled back so that he could take in all the individuals details of the gown that he gave Huesyth free reign in buying. Form-fitting and wine red with a long slit up the left leg, it was sleeveless and had a bit of a shimmer in certain lights. The color matched almost perfectly to the lipstick. He was glad he paid attention when he and his sister used to play in makeup because it certainly helped sell the appearance they were going for. Shaving had been a nightmare and now he looked like he was some baby faced college student that was going to be hanging off of their nearly forty-year-old doctor sugar daddy’s arm.

There was nothing to be done about the overgrown curls so he tried to tame them into some kind of coherent style and allowed his bangs to fall over one of his eyes. He guessed it gave him some kind of air of mystery. Moving his hand up to fix his lipstick when the glint of the diamond that was embedded in the silver band of his ring caught his eye.

It was Huesyth’s idea. His excuse for it was to add more realism but the joy in his eyes when Bec brought it up made it seem as if he just liked spending money.

He was shaken from his daydream by what he thought was a hiss of a snake but was more accurately his own brain trying to scare him. Huffing to himself, he realized that he had probably wasted enough time being a nervous mess in Huesyth’s bathroom and should get out there before the doctor thought he died.

Taking a deep breath, Bec finally opened the bathroom door and exited after stuffing some of his makeup into his purse. The tall heels he had on clicked against the wood floors and Bec knew Huesyth could hear his approach.

He rounded the corner into the living room and Huesyth, dressed in a sleek tuxedo and bowtie, looked up at him. Raising an eyebrow at the doctor, Bec waited for some kind of comment about how he just looked odd. Instead, the taller man stood from the couch, crossing the room almost too quickly to stand before Bec and scan him over. The doctor’s eager hands hovered over Bec’s sides as he held him at arm's length to take it all in.

“Anything to say, Doctor, or are you just going to stare?” Bec quipped.

“You’re gorgeous,” Huesyth stated surely, looking as if his mouth was about to start watering. “I’d kiss you if it wouldn’t mess up your lipstick.”

Bec chuckled softly. “Wait until it dries a bit more and you can do whatever you want to me.”

A smile split over the doctor’s face and a dark blush rose on Bec’s cheeks when he realized how that sounded. Huesyth wrapped his arms around the younger man’s waist. “ _Whatever_ I want, Bec?”

“Within reason, please,” Bec notified which pulled a low laugh from the taller man.

Huesyth smiled, nuzzling lightly against the other man’s cheek before pulling back and offering his arm. “Shall we get going?”

The empath took the offered arm with a small smile of his own.

 

He hadn’t expected to enjoy himself during the night. His anxiety plagued his mind but it seemed that once he allowed himself to melt into the role they had set up, his nerves dissipated. Soon, the empath even found he was enjoying the music more than anything else as they hadn’t been stopped by too many people that Huesyth had to stop and talk to. Bec listened intently to the powerful singing of the redheaded soprano on the stage rows ahead of them, the orchestra swelling with her notes. Risking a look, he peered up at his date and noticed that he was too lost in the sound but he had his eyes closed.

Suddenly, Huesyth opened them, eyes immediately were drawn to the empath staring at him, and his lips quirked up in a smile. The singer clutched her dress as she held her final note and when she finished, the room erupted in applause and the two’s attention was drawn back to the performance. They too stood and clapped for her enthusiastically as she took her final bows.

Once the performance was over, the members of the audience filed out to converse, mingle and drink champagne which is when Bec’s exhaustion began to kick in. He allowed himself to be guided around the floor by Huesyth’s hand on his back as the doctor chatted with Baltimore’s cultural elite that he called his friends. The taller man was as sociable as Bec was reclusive. But the empath barely had to talk, really a lot of the people were happy just to see him smile at something Huesyth said. Until an older woman with short dark hair and a bright red dress approached Huesyth with purpose and hugged him with familiarity.

“It’s been so long, Huesyth,” She expressed, kissing his cheek before pulling back. “We were starting to think you’d forgotten about us.”

“I could never forget about you, Mrs. Komeda,” Huesyth effused.

The woman’s attention was drawn to the unfamiliar face that Huesyth had his arm tucked around. “And who is this beauty?”

“This is my fiancée, Rosa,” Huesyth said without missing a beat, smiling proudly at the empath.

The woman’s face dropped with shock. “Huesyth Cavalli! Engaged to be married and you didn’t even tell any of us?”

Huesyth laughed. “I apologize for my silence but she takes precedence over any bragging.”

Mrs. Komeda stepped forward to shake Bec’s hand. “Mrs. Cavalli… I never thought I’d live to see the day our infamous bachelor finally finds someone.”

Bec smiled, almost bashfully, shaking the woman’s hand back before she pulled away to address the doctor again with her hands on her hips. “It's been too long since you've properly cooked for us, Huesyth.”

The taller man motioned with his champagne glass. “Come over and I will cook for you.”

“I said _properly_ . Which means dinner and a show,” She said, affectionately teasing before turning to her own husband by her side. “Have you seen him cook? It's an entire performance. He used to throw such exquisite dinner parties,” Huesyth raised an eyebrow at the woman as he sipped from his champagne. “You heard me. _Used_ to.”

Amused by her spirit, Bec laughed softly by Huesyth’s side which made the doctor send him a pointed look, the empath shrugging with a smile in response.

The taller man returned his warm grin to Mrs. Komeda. “And I will again, once inspiration strikes. I cannot force a feast. A feast must present itself.”

“It's a dinner party, not a unicorn,” She responded.

“Oh, but the feast is life. You put the life in your belly and you live.”

She chuckled and Bec rolled his eyes. Ever the poet that Huesyth was but the people around them seemed to be charmed by him. But Mrs. Komeda’s attention was drawn to something out of the corner of Huesyth’s peripheral vision which meant that Bec couldn’t see it as he was on the doctor’s other side. Huesyth turned to follow her look and Bec found a short, chubby man with a beard who was looking up at Huesyth as if he was some kind of god. Accompanying him was a taller and thinner dark-skinned man who seemed bored with everything around him.

“I believe this young man is trying to get your attention,” Mrs. Komeda commented and the shorter man smiled big when Huesyth’s eyes finally landed on him.

Huesyth smiled when his eyes landed on the man but Bec could tell it was tighter than normal. He passed his champagne glass to the empath when the man stuck a hand out for him to shake, seemingly not wanting to dislodge his other arm from holding Bec close.

“Hi!” The unknown man greeted happily. “It's so good to see you. This is my friend, Tobias.”

He gestured to the taller man by his side and Huesyth shook his hand also and greeted. “Good evening.”

Tobias’ face remained stoic and Mrs. Komeda asked curiously. “How do you two know each other?”

The shorter man looked to Huesyth for an answer and the doctor said. “There should remain some mystery to my life outside the opera.”

Mrs. Komeda seemed to accept the response but the shorter man spoke up. “I'm one of his patients.”

At that moment, Bec could feel the arm around him tighten slightly and he lowered his own hand to rest comfortingly on top of the one holding his waist. He sipped from the glass of champagne he was given with the other one as he looked between the men.

To move past the awkwardness, Huesyth asked the two newcomers. “Did you enjoy the performance?”

“I did,” The shorter man answered quickly. “I loved it. Every minute.”

“His eyes kept wandering,” Tobias cut in, monotonically. “More interested in you than what was happening on stage.”

Bec could see the uncomfortable smile that Huesyth gave the pair of them, even if he tried to hide it under his pleasantries. He didn’t really understand where all the tension was coming from but he assumed that this kind of behavior wasn’t really normal.

“Oh, don't say too much. You must leave something for us to discuss next week.” Huesyth turned back to the shorter man, hustling them off by shaking his hand again. “Franklyn, good to see you.”

“You too,” The shorter man replied.

The doctor looked to the taller man and gave him the same treatment. “Tobias.”

Tobias’s face again remained unemotional and the two finally scurried off back into the crowd. Huesyth turned back to Mrs. Komeda and the rest of the social elite they’d been conversing with and smiled. “Who’s hungry?”

The people around them all chuckled but Bec sipped at the champagne again without a sound.

 

“So are you going to tell me about the patient in there or should I just stay in the dark?” Bec started as they moved down the stairs outside the museum the opera was taking place at. He had Huesyth’s tuxedo jacket around his bare shoulders to dispel the chill and was ready to kick off the heels that began feeling like needles jabbing into his feet.

Huesyth thought for a moment. “Doctor-patient confidentiality but what I can say is his name is Franklyn.”

“He seemed to like you an awful lot, Huesyth. Should I be jealous?” Bec teased. It was all in good fun.

Huesyth scoffed. “Never, Bec. You’ll never have to worry about any of that. Especially with someone like Franklyn.”

“I appreciate that,” The empath responded sincerely, tightening his grip slightly on Huesyth’s arm.

Huesyth opened the passenger door for Bec when they returned to his car before slipping into the driver’s side himself. The younger man immediately toeing the heels off his feet and leaving them in the floorboards to ease the pain. He tugged the tuxedo jacket off his shoulders and held it in his lap with his purse as they set off down the road.

“I hope you had an enjoyable evening, Bec,” Huesyth expressed without taking his eyes off the road.

“Miraculously, I did. I assumed the amount of social interaction would cause more discomfort than it did. I was anxious for a while but… it got better.”

Huesyth smiled. “I’m glad.”

“I hope you don’t expect to be getting this ring back or anything because it’s starting to grow on me,” Bec wondered aloud, flashing the ring out of the corner of Huesyth’s eye.

“You can keep the entire ensemble if you’d like,” Huesyth reminded. “I bought it for you.”

“Thank you, Huesyth,” Without thinking, Bec leaned across the middle console and pressed a quick kiss to the doctor’s cheek. He returned to his seat without a fuss and began digging through his purse. “I hope Jack didn’t call me while we were in there.”

The doctor mumbled, clearly unimpressed by the prospect of Jack interrupting another one of their times together. “It is rather late.”

With a soft chuckle, Bec replied. “Murder doesn’t sleep and neither does Jack anymore. Would you be able to if you knew a serial killer was in your bedroom?”

Huesyth didn’t answer the question but it was meant to be rhetorical. He flipped his phone on and when the screen brightened, he found it had no new notifications besides a ‘goodnight!’ text from his sister from two hours ago. It made him smile which Huesyth apparently took notice of.

“Obviously, it’s nothing from Jack,” He commented.

Scoffing, Bec flipped the screen off again and shoved it back into the purse. “It was my sister telling me goodnight.”

“We’ve never discussed your siblings at length, have we?” Huesyth asked.

Raising an eyebrow at the side of the doctor’s head, Bec responded. “Well, we’ve never really talked about your older brother either now have we?”

Huesyth hummed with a nod. “Touché, my dear.”

Bec paused for a moment. “Are… Are you still talking to your brother?”

The question made Huesyth go quiet for a moment and Bec quickly added. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t wan-”

“It’s alright, Bec. He was released when he turned twenty-one and we moved around together until I began attending school in France and then in America. He now owns a boxing gym in Washington, D.C. We talk regularly.”

The empath tipped his head slightly and repeated. “‘We talk regularly’. That’s good, right? I can’t tell if that’s good.”

Huesyth laughed softly. “It’s very good. We are still very close.”

“That’s good.”

 

The first kisses were fierce, to demand the doctor’s full attention as Bec climbed into his lap. Full of teeth and tongue as they fought for some kind of coherent rhythm to follow. Bec’s hips moving in an unsteady grind against Huesyth’s lap.

The next ones became more gentle, lingering and chasing when one pulled away for too long. Huesyth brought his hands up to pull Bec’s dress up and out of the way, tugging at the lovely pair of lace panties that the empath decided to wear under the dress. Either as a surprise or as a tease.

The last form was much like the first. A thrusting, hot invasion of growing urgency shown in groans and whimpers as their hands began to wander across the other's body. They gripped and stroked, tugging at clothes as desperately as they could to remove them.

They separated long enough for Bec to suckle and lick at three of the doctor’s fingers in a futile attempt to give them some form of lubrication. Hueyth reached around and simply pulled the panties aside to make room for his fingers to stretch out his lover. It was slow and careful despite the whining demands in his ear.

When Huesyth declared him ready, Bec’s hands quickly shot up to Huesyth’s belt. Fumbling in getting it out of the loops in the confined space but finally pulling the doctor’s swollen cock free from the confines of the dress pants. The empath pulled Huesyth in for another fiery press of lips as he lowered himself down onto his lover and impaled himself to the hilt with a satisfied whimper against the other man’s mouth. He could never get over just how good the doctor’s cock felt as it rested inside him.

Then, Huesyth gripped Bec’s hips and began fucking up into him in deep thrusts, lips curled almost in a snarl and fingers clawing against the fabric hiked up on Bec’s waist. Bec’s eyes were half closed and he dropped his head onto Huesyth’s shoulder. His sweaty forehead pressed against his shirt as he licked and nibbled at the doctor’s neck above the collar. His own hips were bucking and rolling as he chased the white hot pleasure shooting through him with every hard snap of hips.

And when they both came together, Bec’s body tensed up so tightly that he felt like he was going to pull something. But there was a rush of heat into him as Huesyth’s hand gripped tightly into the fabric of his dress. It was enough to make him throw his head back and give a high pitched moan into the small space of the car. The heavy breathing against his slick neck was enough of a reminder that it was real and not one of the best sex dreams of his life.

In the afterglow, the languid, uncoordinated press of lips were mostly aimed at the corner of mouths but they felt warm and satisfied. Bec made a pleased but wrecked noise against Huseyth’s cheek when he pulled out. He could feel the doctor’s cum oozing from his sensitive hole to stain his panties more than they already were. They were both absolutely _filthy_ with sweat and cum.

Until a loud, piercing sound of a phone ringing broke the silence of their own deep breathing and made Bec almost jump out of his skin as if pulling him out of a pleasing daydream. Huesyth growled loudly against Bec’s shoulder, wrapping his arms more tightly around the empath’s waist. He was probably thinking to himself that he should throw that phone out the window before it pulled Bec out of his lap. But Bec scrambled for his purse and yanked the still ringing phone out, answering it quickly.

“Hello?” Bec said. “Yeah, yeah, Jack, it’s me. Where do you need me?”

Huesyth could hear the muffled sound of Jack’s voice answering through the speaker but didn’t focus on it. Instead, he began pressing gentle kisses against Bec’s collarbone and shoulders, working his way up his neck until Bec’s breath hitched slightly.

“Y-You’ll have to give me at least an hour, Jack. I’m not home right now but I’ll meet you there. Yeah… I know. I’ll be there as soon as possible… Okay, bye.”

Bec quickly flipped his phone off, tossing it back into the passenger seat so he could pull Huesyth’s face up from his neck to kiss him properly. Against the doctor’s lips, Bec explained. “I need you to take me back to your place so I can get dressed,” Another kiss to keep Huesyth from protesting. “And then I need to go home before Jack thinks I died.”

Huesyth made a displeased sound but released Bec from his grasp and allowed the empath to adjust his dress, fumbling back into his seat with a used groan.

 

“The victim was found in a hotel room bathtub,” Jack explained but Bec was only half listening, leaning against the passenger window of the FBI SUV that Jack had picked him up in. He mostly just wanted to change clothes and didn’t bother showering to remove the makeup. Not like Jack would have let him considering he impatiently called another time right after Bec had just gotten dressed. “There were abdominal mutilations and organ removal on the scene.”

“Sounds more like an urban legend than the Chesapeake Ripper, no?” Bec responded, not even bothering to hide the slight irritation in his voice. If it turned out not to even be a Ripper victim then Bec would feel sorely cheated.

At the sound of Bec’s frustration, Jack peered over to the empath, possibly scanning over his out of character appearance. “Did I interrupt something?”

“I was on a date,” Bec answered without looking at him.

Jack gave an obvious look of surprise. “I didn’t know you were seeing anyone. It… doesn’t sound like something you’d do.”

“It’s fine, Jack. It’s not your fault.”

“You shaved too,” Jack noticed.

With a soft scoff, Bec responded. “It was my first date in a while.”

The agent paused for a moment before finally continuing about the case. “I've had the room sealed. You'll get it fresh.”

“Fresh?” Bec repeated. “Fresh as a daisy?”

“Fresh enough for you to tell me whether or not it's the Ripper. Then you can go back to your date.”

Bec chuckled breathily, leaning his head back against the car headrest. “Oh, you don't want that. You want me to wrap my head so tight around the Ripper I won't go back to my life until he's caught.”

The older agent shrugged slightly, offering. “It’s your bad luck that you're the best, pal.”

“Expecting another couple of bodies after this one?” Bec asked.

“If it's the Ripper, yes, I am,” Jack asserted.

He could hear the tightness in Jack’s voice and Bec knew that his paranoia from their last dance with the mysterious killer was still fresh in his mind. “Don't let the Ripper stir you up. The reason he left you Miriam Lass's arm is so he could poke you with it.”

Jack paused, still stewing in his own anger that was directed at the Ripper. “Why not the rest of her?”

“With his other victims, he wanted to humiliate them in death like... like a public dissection. She was different.”

“He was probably impressed that she was able to find him,” Jack thought aloud. “He may be starting another cycle, Bec.”

“The Ripper contacted you _directly_. If he was killing again, he wouldn't be subtle about it. He would just pick up the phone.” The empath raised an eyebrow at the side of the older agent’s head.

“Any more phone calls, Jack?”

“No,” Jack answered swiftly. “Look, if this is the Ripper, there'll be at least two more bodies and then nothing for months, maybe even a year. We'll have a window of opportunity to catch him and that window will close. The last time the window closed, I lost the Ripper and I lost Miriam Lass. I don't intend to do that again.”

 

Bec followed Jack as they moved through halls to the hotel room. Already, the team of scientists was collecting evidence from around the suite.

“Has anyone touched the body?” Jack asked as he entered.

“For once, local police behaved themselves,” Brian replied as he snapped photos of the living area.

Next, Jimmy stood up straight from where he’d been dusting for fingerprints on the glass coffee table. He motioned towards the bathroom with a hand. “It's fairly evident the man's dead just by looking at him.”

“I touched the body,” Beverly admitted. “A lot going on with that body. Surgery was performed and then un-performed.”

“The surgery was un-performed with bare hands. His sutures were clawed open,” Brian explained. Jack narrowed his eyes slightly at the other man and the scientist continued. “I, uh, I also... did a little bit of touching.”

“Pieces of him were torn off from the bed to the bathroom, like breadcrumbs,” Jimmy told, gesturing to the bloody pieces he mentioned as they stained the floor.

Brian looked over at Bec as the empath followed behind Jack and had to do a quick double take. “You look… event ready, Bec.”

Before Bec could answer, Jack cut in instead. “He was on a date when I called.”

The scientists all had their own looks of surprise and even confusion at the thought of the social recluse of an empath going on a date with _anyone_.

They moved into the bathroom where the man’s body was left propped up in the bathtub, pajama shirt and pants soaked in dried blood. Bec slipped his glasses off his face, tucking them into his jacket as he sat on the edge of the tub and out of the way of the blood spatter across the linoleum.

“The surgery wasn't performed here. There would be a lot more blood,” Bec noticed.

“If he's moving his victims,” Beverly started from the doorway the scientists were looking in from. “He could be performing the mutilations in the same transport.”

“Find the car, find the killer,” Jimmy said.

Bec moved the man’s limp hand over, examining the chunks of skin and blood clots caked under his nails. “He tore open his own sutures.”

“It wasn't the kidney,” Beverly said. “The Ripper already took it with him. Or her.”

“I'd say him,” Jimmy added with a slight cringe at the rough and jagged gouge in the body.

“What did he take out of the chest?” Jack asked.

“He was going for the heart,” Brian said, pointing to the body. “Probably interrupted. It's intact. Traumatized, but it's intact.”

Going quiet, Bec studied the open chest cavity as Jack ushered the scientists out of the room, gently closing the bathroom door behind him. He took a deep breath and exhaled, his eyelids sliding shut to let the pendulum swing.

_The killer moved into the suite from the front door but instead of seeing the murder victim leading into the bathroom, there was a dark shape. The black snake making its way up the short stairs into the open doorway. He crossed the length of the room, blinking and the victim was there, clothes becoming soaked in blood from sutures that had been clawed open. Already woozy, already suffering._

“Signs of a struggle indicate he's suffering from a severe, violent emergence from deep sedation.”

_When the killer approached, the victim fell into him, struggling with him until the killer forced him back into the adjacent wall. He was dragged into the bathroom before the killer threw the man into the shower wall, letting him slide down into the tub. Immediately drawn to the victim’s unmoving form, the killer pressed his hand against the man’s chest._

“His heart seizes up.”

_The killer ripped open the man’s shirt, taking up a scalpel and making a long incision across the victim’s chest. Blood pouring from the inflicted wound._

“I open his chest wall.”

_The killer forced open the ribs that were in the way, cracking a few in his attempt to move them._

“I spread the ribs.”

_The killer shoved his hands into the opening he made, grabbing hold of the pulsating muscle and slowly mimicking the beat of the heart._

“I... I take his heart in my hand. Internal cardiac massage.”

_The heart slowed before stopping with the killer still wrist deep in the victim’s chest. Blood soaked all the way up to his elbow._

Bec stood alone over the body in the tub, breathing heavily. It wasn’t the Ripper. It was nothing like the Ripper.

“J-Jack?” Bec called out. The door opened again and Jack entered, prompting Bec to continue without turning around. “This wasn’t brutal. The killer wasn't killing. He was trying to save his life. The Ripper ever do that?”

It wasn’t long before the scientists were back and putting in their own opinions about his findings but Jack was staring at the body. He hadn’t spoken in a moment, too busy going over the thoughts in his brain.

He was probably disappointed that it was obviously not the Ripper.

“It's the Chesapeake Ripper,” Brian asserted from the doorway, his hands on his hips.

Bec said again, holding a tissue to his nose as it became soaked with blood. “It's not the Ripper.”

“There are too many similarities.”

“There aren't enough,” The empath sighed. He felt the first pulse of a headache beginning to form behind his eyes.

Brian began to list firmly. “Knife wounds are cuts, not stabs. Anatomical knowledge, dissection skills, mutilation, organs removed, victim clothed, on display. We got twenty-two signature components all attributable to the same killer.”

He acted as if Bec didn’t know the Ripper’s M.O. by heart already.

“Twenty-two _possible_ signature components,” Bec said as he stood from where he’d been sitting to go to the door.

“It’s the Ripper,” Brian demanded. Without offense or even looking as he does it, Bec swung the bathroom door closed in the scientist’s face.

Bec turned back to the agent leaning against the wall above the body and Jack asked. “Are you sure?”

“More or less.”

“Tell me why you’re sure.”

Bec sighed. There wasn’t enough time to explain all of the ways that it wasn’t the Ripper but he could start with how sloppy it was. It was fear filled and sporadic. The Ripper never ripped open a body and tried to shove his hand into a victim’s chest to save their life. It was pathetic in comparison.

“The Ripper left his last victim in a church pew using his tongue as a page marker in the Bible he was holding. This isn't that.” Bec shook his head. “This is a medical student or a trainee or someone trying to make an extra buck in a back-alley surgery, and it went bad. Actively bad.” Despite that, Jack couldn’t hide the disappointment in his face so Bec expressed. “You'll catch the Ripper eventually.”

“Yeah, well, I want to catch him now,” Jack snapped. “And when I do, you're not gonna get a chance to shoot him, 'cause I'm gonna do that.”

“You can't just jack up the law and get underneath it,” Bec reminded.

“Can't I?” Jack turned back to the empath. “Tell me how you see the Ripper, Bec.”

He couldn’t help but furrow his brow at the request.

The empath had no idea how to describe his vision of this killer with words. He couldn’t simply put him into the box of a psychopath or even that of a monster. He obviously had a sophisticated level of intelligence, medical knowledge, and a flair for dramatics and brutality. It was a unique blend that kept Bec guessing.

He averted his eyes from the older agent as he began to explain. “I see him as one of those pitiful things sometimes born in hospitals. They feed it, keep it warm, but they don't put it on the machines. They let it die. But he doesn't die. He looks normal... and nobody can tell what he is.”

 

When the time came around, Huesyth opened the office door, smiling politely at the person he found waiting. “Good morning. Please come in.”

Sheepishly, Franklyn rose from his seat and entered the office.

Huesyth kept his face neutral as Franklyn sat across from him for an uncomfortably long moment of silence. Apparently, waiting for Franklyn to bring up his own problems was a waste and Huesyth finally spoke.

“Would you like to discuss our chance encounter?”

Franklyn chuckled. “It wasn't altogether by chance. I kind of... kinda thought you'd be there... which isn't why I was there. I-I... I was there because I like that sort of thing. Uh, it just occurred to me that... that you might like it too.”

“In fact, I do,” Huesyth responded. He kept his expression inscrutable despite him wanting to shift away uncomfortably.

His eyes went down slightly before they returned to Huesyth’s face. “I, um, noticed that you don’t wear a ring.” Huesyth narrowed his eyes slightly in confusion before Franklyn continued. “Well, that was your wife with you at the opera, right?”

He offered a smile, flexing the fingers of his bare left hand. “It was, yes.”

“See. I didn’t even know you were married,” Franklyn added. He sounded almost offended to be left out of the loop of Huesyth’s personal life. “I tried to get your attention.”

“I was aware of that.”

“I knew that you were aware,” Franklyn explained with a shrug. “Even though you were pretending that you weren't.”

Huesyth took in a breath as he readied himself for the same cookie cutter response he had used several times before. “It would be unethical to approach a patient or acknowledge in any way our relationship outside this room until that patient gives consent.”

“But I really don't know who you are outside this room,” Franklyn inquired, twirling his finger to gesture to the office around them.

“I'm your psychiatrist.”

But Franklyn clarified. “I want you to be my friend.”

“Of course you do,” Huesyth said matter-of-factly. “I have intimate knowledge of you.”

“And we like the same things. I think that we would make good friends. It makes me sad that I have to _pay_ to see you.”

Franklyn sighed and the doctor went quiet to think of what way would be best to explain to him that Huesyth wasn’t seeking friendship with _anyone_. Let alone a patient with abandonment issues. “I am a source of stability and clarity, Franklyn. I'm not your friend.”

“I'm a great friend,” The other man pressed but he went quiet. Sighing softly to himself, Franklyn’s shoulders seemed to droop. “I was listening to, uh, Michael Jackson last night, and I burst into tears, and... my eyes are burning right now just talking about it. You know what I think is the saddest thing about him dying is that I will never get to meet him, and I feel like if I was his friend that I... I would have been able to... help save him from himself.”

“In this Michael Jackson fantasy, how is your friendship returned?”

“I just get to touch greatness.”

Well, Huesyth wasn’t the greatness that he should have been seeking.

 

“This always goes better if I'm perfectly honest with you,” Bedelia admitted cooly. The woman had crossed one of her legs over the other, blonde hair falling in waves just past her shoulders, as she stared evenly at the doctor sitting across from her.

“What would be the point otherwise?”

“Well, one of us has to be honest,” She said.

Huesyth narrowed his eyes slightly. “I'm honest.”

“Not perfectly.”

“As honest as anyone.”

Bedelia shook her head slightly without taking her eyes off him as if he’d snap the second she let her guard down. “Not really. I have conversations with a version of you and hope that the actual you gets what he needs.”

“A version of me?” Huesyth questioned.

“Naturally, I respect its meticulous construction, but you are wearing a very well-tailored person suit.”

Bemused by the choice of words, Huesyth tipped his head slightly to the side. “Do you refer to me as Person Suit with your psychiatrist friends?”

She gave a well-meaning smile. “I don't discuss patients with my psychiatrist friends, especially since I only have one patient who chose to ignore my retirement.”

“A patient who wears a person suit.”

“Maybe it's less of a person suit and more of a human veil,” Something in Bedelia’s own mask came through, something akin to pity, and she continued. “That must be lonely.”

“I have friends,” Huesyth started. “And the opportunities for friends. You and I are friendly.”

The pity disappeared as Bedelia straightened up ever so slightly. “You are my patient and my colleague, not my friend. At the end of your hour, I will pour you a glass of wine. Nevertheless, you will be drinking it on the other side of the veil.”

Genuinely curious, Huesyth asked. “Why do you bother?”

“I see enough of you to see the truth of you,” She said, smiling and checking her watch. “And I like you.” Bedelia stood from her seat and adjusted her dress skirt. “Red or white?”

“I think something pink, don't you?”

 

After his drink with Bedelia, he returned to his office. But only in time to open the door again to this time be greeted by his final patient of the day. One that brought an immediate smile to his face.

“Good evening, Bec,” Huesyth greeted warmly. “Please come in.”

The empath turned to him, smiling shyly as he stepped inside. As soon as the door closed behind him, he tugged Huesyth down far enough by his suit lapels to press a gentle kiss to his lips.

Bec pulled back first but not far. “I never did apologize for running off on you like that the other night.”

“No apology necessary, merendina,” The doctor muttered. “The actions of the killers you hunt are no fault of yours.”

Curiously, Bec licked the taste on his lips and looked over to the half-full glass of wine still resting on his side table. “Oh, you've been drinking.”

The empath moved away, tugging off his jacket as he approached his usual chair without sitting down. Huesyth explained. “I had a glass of wine with my last appointment, yes.”

“Drinking with a patient?” Bec asked casually, draping his jacket across the chaise longue.

“Ah, _she_ was drinking with a patient. I have a rather unconventional psychiatrist,” Huesyth said, sitting in his usual chair.

“Well, we have that in common,” Bec quipped before finally taking a seat across from the doctor.

“Am I your psychiatrist or are we simply having conversations?”

Bec paused to think. “Yes, I think is the answer to that.”

“Then having a glass of wine before seeing a patient,” Huesyth said, standing again and going to his cupboard to retrieve another wine glass. “I assure you, is very conventional. Especially for evening appointments.”

The empath gave a soft chuckle. “Huh. How long have you been seeing a psychiatrist?”

“Since I chose to be a psychiatrist,” Huesyth poured a bit of the pinkish wine into the glass and passed it off to the empath.

“Thank you,” Bec said, sipping from the glass. He was never really a fan of wine or its bitter tang but something about it with Huesyth let him relax with it.

“I read the Freddie Lounds article,” Huesyth revealed as he returned to sitting across from the empath. “The Chesapeake Ripper has struck again.”

Quickly, Bec shook his head. “No, no, no. No, it's not the same guy.”

“Maybe it's never been the same guy.”

“Oh, what, now he has a friend?” Bec chuckled, taking another drink from his glass as if to cover the underlying fear of there being two Rippers.

Huesyth leaned forward in his seat. “Any variations in the murders that might suggest there could be more than one Ripper?”

“Some variations,” Bec said with a shrug. “But it’s not the same as the Ripper.”

Huesyth drank from his own wine glass. “The victims were all brutalized. What was the brutalization hiding?”

“The careful, surgical removal and preservation of vital organs,” Bec answered.

“ _Valuable_ organs.”

“Organ harvesters?” The empath questioned.

“Jack's looking for a serial killer he can't seem to catch. It's a brilliant diversion.”

Bec shrugged slightly. “That's an interesting theory. I will keep it in mind if another body drops.”

“Please do,” Huesyth said with a warm smile.

 

Months earlier, the medical examiner drew blood from Huesyth’s forearm and released it into a vial for later testing.

“Any other infections?” He asked, pressing a piece of cotton against the place where the needle entered.

“You seem convinced I'm diseased,” Huesyth quipped.

“I was asking a broader question. A disease is an infection. An infection isn't always a disease.”

“That is true,” Huesyth agreed.

The examiner removed his gloves with an impatient snap of rubber. “You should just tell me now, because I'm going to find out, and it will affect your insurance if you lie.”

Huesyth raised an eyebrow at the other man. “May I ask for your business card, please, for my records?”

It wasn’t long after that Huesyth had tracked the man down again. The examiner wasn’t hiding, it was made easy.

The headlights approached the broken down sedan after it came to a sputtering stop in the middle of nowhere. Andrew kicked at the wheel of his car after he stood from examining the punctured gas tank that had leaked its last drop of fuel onto the road. The examiner shielded his eyes when the headlights of the other car shined directly at him as it pulled to a stop behind him. Huesyth exited his vehicle, closing the door behind him to avoid rain ruining the inside of his car.

“Do you need a hand?” Huesyth asked.

“I think I must have hit a rock or something. It gouged my gas tank,” Andrew explained gesturing to the car.

The examiner couldn’t make out his face in any detail with the headlights in his eyes. Even if they were off, the doctor doubted he would’ve remembered him. But Huesyth approached him almost calmly, the roll of his shoulders under his jacket not unlike a predator stalking towards its prey.

Curiously, Andrew tipped his head to the side. “Have we met before?”

 

Huesyth’s skillful fingers walked through the many cards in the Rolodex until he came to a blue and white business card. Andrew Caldwell, an independent medical examiner. Next, he scanned through his box of recipes before coming across one for crisp lemon calf liver. Huesyth studied the recipe, pleased with his selection.

 

The empath narrowed his eyes at the body laid out on the morgue table, split jaggedly at the waist so that the intestines spilled out. He was pale from lack of blood, splotchy blue and purple in some areas of trauma.

“He was found in a school bus, sitting across the aisle from himself,” Brian explained on the other side of the table. “Not only did the Ripper take his kidney but he also took his heart, which, if you'll recall, is what he tried to do in the hotel but was interrupted before he could paint his picture.”

“The Ripper wasn't painting a picture in the hotel. Someone else was,” Bec reminded monotonically. He had to remind Brian every time he saw him.

“You still think that he was ripping out a heart to save a life?” Brian questioned but they he worded it made Bec want to sigh.

The other man was trying to make Bec look crazy and the empath didn’t need his help with that. He responded without looking up from the body. “Yes, I do.”

Before Brian could respond again, Beverly thankfully cut in. “The Ripper painted this picture, for sure. In big, broad strokes.”

She passed Bec one of the crime scene photos and the empath’s jaw twitched at the sight of them. “Could both victims' organs have been harvested for transplant?”

Beverly shrugged slightly. “Subtle variation, on the whole, waking up in a tub of ice missing a kidney story?”

“I love a good urban legend,” Jimmy beamed. “You could put the organs on a ventilator long enough to coordinate the donation.”

Brian chimed in. “At the hotel, the victim's abdominal aorta and inferior vena cava... that's like the kidney's in-and-out for blood... were entirely removed.”

“They're like USB cables,” Beverly explained in words that Bec could easily understand. “You keep them intact for an easy reconnect.”

“Were Mr. Caldwell's heart and kidney disconnected for easy reconnect?” Bec asked.

“Yeah,” Brian answered.

“Um, other Ripper victims... Organs and USB cables missing?”

“It's inconclusive due to the degree of mutilation, but yes, that is how the Ripper rips.” The other dark haired man continued.

Beverly added. “Two different killers, same agenda?”

It didn’t feel that simple and no one really knew what the Ripper’s real agenda was.

“Is the organ harvester disguising his work as the crimes of a serial killer, or is the serial killer disguising his crimes as the work of an organ harvester?” Jimmy brought up with a confused expression.

“The Chesapeake Ripper wants to _perform_ ,” Bec said, shaking the crime scene photo in his hand. “Every brutal choice has... elegance, grace. His mutilations hide the true nature of his crimes.”

 

Delicately, he twisted the peeled tomato into the shape of a rose, placing it on the plate with the other four tomatoes he had already prepared.

“I've been unspeakably rude,” Huesyth expressed. “I haven't offered you a drink.”

Alana looked up from the vegetables she had been dicing at the other station, not as handy with a knife as Huesyth but skilled nonetheless. Grinning cheekily, she responded. “I appreciate beer more than wine.”

“It's not what you appreciate. It's that you appreciate it,” Huesyth moved to the refrigerator to retrieve a dark glass bottle. “A compromise? Beer brewed in a wine barrel. Two years. I bottled it myself.”

He popped the top off and poured it into a beer glass, passing it to Alana. “I’m impressed.” She took a swig, swishing it around in her mouth before swallowing. “A Cabernet Sauvignon wine barrel.”

Huesyth smiled and returned to behind his counter. “I love your pallet.”

“I love your beer. I taste oak. What else do I taste in there?” She asked, taking another swig in an attempt to distinguish the different notes.

“I will only answer that yes or no,” Huesyth responded playfully.

“Are you serving this at your dinner party?” Alana questioned, placing the glass aside on her workstation.

Huesyth shook his head. “No. This is your reserve.”

“My own private reserve?” She said, smiling with a raised brow. “Why, thank you.”

Alana set her beer aside to return to dicing and Huesyth continued. “I'm curious about something. Are you purposefully avoiding the subject of Bec Reyes?”

“Absolutely,” Alana returned without hesitation. He loved that it never took long to get to the truth with her.

“Not on my account, I hope. I'm happy to get your perspective.”

Sighing softly, Alana grabbed her beer again and walked over to stand across from Huesyth as she felt the conversation grow more serious. “No, it's on Jack Crawford's account. I don't want any information about Bec that I shouldn't have as his friend.”

Huesyth can admit that his blood began to boil at even the sound of Jack’s name, his eye twitching slightly in agitation but he managed to keep it unnoticeable. “Did Jack ask you to profile the Ripper?”

Alana shook her head before relenting. “Not since I consulted on the case with Miriam before she disappeared.”

He made a face like he was trying to remember the familiar name. “Crawford’s trainee.”

“Yeah,” Alana responded.

“Very sad.”

She looked up at him from the food he was working on, scanning his face with familiarity. “You had me examining Ph.D. candidates that week.”

Huesyth smiled warmly at the memory. “And I'm grateful you were examining Ph.D. students and not the Ripper,” He hummed before looking away. “You realize those candidates thought we were having an affair.”

Alana grinned. “Bec does that, too, you know.”

“What?” Huesyth narrowed his eyes. “Have affairs?”

“Flirtatiously change the subject. You have that pathology in common.”

He had to do a slight double take. The doctor severely doubted Bec would be flirtatious with anyone considering he didn’t even flirt with Huesyth and they were dating. In secret, but dating nonetheless and they had far more in common than they’d like to admit. But the doctor had to keep the conversation in his favor.

“Or we just have you in common. I recall even before I met Bec, you never spoke about him.”

“Probably because I just want everybody to leave him alone,” Alana muttered. “It's not even about Bec. Jack's obsessed with the Chesapeake Ripper and he's grooming Bec to catch him.”

Huesyth was glad he wasn’t the only person noticing that. “And I sincerely hope he does.”

 

Picking through his recipes again, now alone in his kitchen, Huesyth finds one for Chicken Liver Pate and knew he had the perfect cut of meat for the preparation. He plucked another business card out of his Rolodex, Michelle Vocalson in Customer Service. Laying out the preserved lungs, he sliced bits of meat off carefully to be packaged and places them in the freezer.

Nearing the end of the week, Huesyth had three more bodies worth of organs in his fridge following Andrew Caldwell, prepped and ready to be prepared for his party. After Michelle came Darrell Ledgerwood, general manager, and Christopher Ward, IT consultant. All were prepped and ready for final preparation when the time was right.

 

“They're all missing different organs,” Jimmy explained. “Before, we were looking at waiting lists for a heart or a kidney. Now we're looking at hearts, kidneys, livers, stomachs, pancreases, lungs. “ He pointed to one of the bodies near the front of the line. “This guy, he's missing a spleen. A spleen! Who the hell gets a spleen transplant?”

Bec moved between the five different sliced up bodies they had laid out in a line on autopsy tables. He gestured to one of the corpses. “Intestines were the only organ missing from this body?”

With a shrug, Brian added. “Yes, so we're either looking for someone with short bowels or the Ripper's making sausage.”

“He must be selling these organs to someone,” Jack said, his arms crossed over his chest.

“We don't even know if he's transplanting them within the US,” Brian explained. “He could be exporting them to China.”

Enthusiastically, Jimmy backed up the claim. “The Chinese have a cultural taboo that restricts voluntary donation. You gotta die with all your parts or you dishonor mommy and daddy.”

“I mean, you could still kill a guy for parts. That doesn't break that taboo,” Brian clarified.

“I was agreeing with you,” Jimmy turned back to the other man. “Well, I was.”

“Your tone was a little…”

Jack cut in before their bickering could go on anymore. “Okay, _okay_. How many killers?”

“Two,” Bec said.

“And you’re confident one of them is The Chesapeake Ripper?”

Bec gave a halfhearted shrugged. “At least one of them, yes.”

 

Elsewhere, Huesyth was forcing himself to keep a straight face as Franklyn happily started their session with. “I discovered that we are Cheese-Folk.” Franklyn sat down and noticed the slight confusion in Huesyth’s face, continuing on. “I saw you shopping for cheese the other day. I didn't say hello because you were so uncomfortable the last time that I did.”

“This city is very small,” Huesyth commented as he turned to quickly make a report of this in his notebook.

“Yes,” Franklyn agreed. Out of the corner of his eye, Huesyth saw the short man lean forward in his chair to give the doctor’s knee a friendly pat with the tips of his fingers. “José's. José's has the best selection of artisanal cheeses in Baltimore, city or county.”

Huesyth smiled tightly, shifting back uncomfortably in his chair to face Franklyn again. The stout man chuckled almost nervously. “Cheese is my passion. You ever heard of Tyromancy?”

The doctor shrugged slightly. “Divination by cheese.”

“It was my gateway to cheeses. It was like a magic 8 ball that you can eat.” He wrung his hands slightly in front of him. “Tobias, he, um... He doesn't eat dairy.”

The softness of Franklyn’s voice as he mentioned Tobias could have portrayed many things but the doctor decided to take a gamble. Huesyth considered that a moment then asked. “Do you desire Tobias sexually?”

At the question, Franklyn’s eyes opened almost cartoonishly wide. “ _No._ God, no. Uh... no. Not to be defensive. I just, um... I mean, don't get me wrong. I was in a Fraternity. I-I-I tried things, you know? Uh, um... It's just not my brand.”

Even as the other man stuttered and struggled for the right words, the doctor’s face remained inscrutable. “You care deeply about Tobias despite differences. He's your best friend, but you're not his.”

He could see the way his patient’s shoulders seemed to droop. “Well, it's sad when you say it like that.”

“You often worry about being alone?” Huesyth asked.

Franklyn let out a soft sigh. “I worry about hurting. Being alone comes with a... A dull ache, doesn't it?”

“It can.”

The rest of the session passed uneventfully and Huesyth went to office door to greet his next patient, but upon looking out, no one was there. He checked his watch, there was still time before the actual appointment would start so he could forgive a little lateness.

Hesitantly, he returned to his desk, wringing his hands together like he had the jitters as he stared down at his phone. Flipping it on, he had no new messages or missed calls. He brought his log over, checking the list of appointments and indeed found _B. Reyes 7:30 pm_ written near the bottom of the page. Bec had never missed an appointment, even near the beginning when he thought that the therapy was useless. The doctor flipped the log closed, barely thinking a moment before he stood again, picked up his coat, and left the office.

 

_The wind picked up and blew the tall grass of the field against one another, creating a soft rustling that filled the air around them. He looked across the blackened body of the girl skewered on the antlers of a stag at Abigail as she sat before him. The girl was smiling widely but the happiness was not reaching her eyes. The starless evening sky seemed to swirl above them in a mess of watercolor hues._

_“It's better that it's just the two of us,” Abigail said. The empath didn’t reply. Instead, he looked towards the body again. It stretched out between them like a dinner table._

“Bec?” _A distant voice called._

_Abigail looked up at the heavy sky. “Dad.”_

“Yes?” _Bec answered._

_“There's someone else here.”_

The scene faded, reality melting back into view as Bec took in his actual surroundings. He’s sitting alone at his desk in the lecture hall, the table top in front of him covered in crime scene photos.

“Bec?” The empath blinked and glanced up to Huesyth as he entered the room, who smiled warmly. “I have a 24-hour cancellation policy.”

The empath’s brow drew together in confusion before he remembered. “What time is it?”

“Nearly nine o'clock,” Huesyth said.

With a groan, Bec ran his hands down his face like he could rub away the pain. “Oh, God, I'm sorry, Huesyth.”

“No apology necessary.”

“I must have fallen asleep,” The empath muttered. “Was I sleepwalking?”

Huesyth explained. “Your eyes were open, but you were not present.”

So not sleepwalking but it couldn’t have hallucinations. It was too surreal. “Jeez. I felt as if I was asleep. I just need to stop sleeping altogether. That seems to be the best way to avoid bad dreams.”

He meant as a joke but the doctor’s brow furrowed slightly in concern. Huesyth glanced at the graphic crime scene photos strewn about the desk. “Well, I can see why you have bad dreams.”

Bec huffed a laugh, standing and gesturing to the collection of photos as he moved to stand by Huesyth’s side. “What do you see, Doctor?”

“Sum up the Ripper in so many words?” Huesyth inquired, examining the photos of the victims.

“Choose them wisely.”

“Oh, I always do,” Huesyth conceded. “Words are living things. They have personality, point of view, agenda.”

“They’re pack hunters.”

Huesyth zeroed in on the more… _creative_ tableaus of bodies. “Displaying one's enemy after death has its appeal in many cultures.”

“These aren't the Ripper's enemies,” Bec corrected, leaning forward on the desk. “These are _pests_ he's swatted.”

“Their reward for their cruelty?”

Bec let out a breathy chuckle. “Oh, it isn’t cruelty he has a problem with. This was their reward for undignified behavior. These dissections are meant to disgrace them in a form of… of public shaming.”

Huesyth paused for a moment before sparing a look to the empath. “He takes their organs because, in his mind, they don't deserve to have them.”

Bec met eyes with the doctor briefly before Huesyth looked away again. “In some way or another.”

Out of the pile, the doctor pulled the photo of the severed arm in the observatory, clutching the phone. “What's this?”

“It's Jack Crawford's trainee,” Bec responded when he saw what the taller man was holding. “She wasn’t like the other victims. The Ripper had no reason to humiliate Miriam Lass.”

Huesyth cocked his head slightly at the image. “Seems to me that he was humiliating someone.”

“Yeah, he was humiliating Jack,” The empath nodded.

“Did it work?” Huesyth asked.

Bec raised a brow with a soft scoff. “I'd say it worked _really_ well.”

The doctor returned the photo to the pile so that he could look over the empath’s face and ask. “Have your nightmares been worsening? You haven’t seemed to be sleepwalking while you’re at my home.”

Seemingly caught off guard, the empath gave another breathy laugh. “I guess my brain is usually thinking of things other than murderers when I’m with you.”

Bec gently ran his fingers over the top of Huesyth’s hand that was resting on the desk in front of them. The doctor grinned. “I think of it as an honor to offer you some kind of distraction, my dear. Sometimes that beautiful brain of yours needs to rest.”

The empath couldn’t help the chuckle that fell from his lips, motioning again to the gruesome photos. “Does any of this look beautiful to you because that’s usually what’s replaying in my brain 24/7.”

Huesyth raised an eyebrow at the shorter man and didn’t spare a glance to the images, instead cupping Bec’s face and inching forward to press a tender kiss against the empath’s lips. “I’ve noticed that it’s easier than one might think to find beauty in all things.”

Bec could admit that being around Huesyth made his mind seemingly narrow. It was usually rushing in thousands of directions and imagining life from everyone else’s perspectives. The empath felt like a back seat driver to his own life and the car was nearing the edge of a cliff at all times. But with Huesyth, it seemed like he was pulled back to the present and allowed to make his own decisions, be his own person, be his _true self_ without judgment. It was almost frightening just how much the doctor seemed to accept him as he is, with all his jagged edges and missing pieces.

The doctor dropped his hands to Bec’s hips and, without separating their lips, moved them so that Bec was pressed back against the edge of the desktop. Wrapping his arms around Huesyth’s neck and letting himself be moved around however he was wanted, Bec moaned softly against the other man’s lips as the doctor ran his hands up his clothed torso. Huesyth pulled back after leaving a firm bite on Bec’s lower lip but only moved to begin pressing open-mouthed kisses more akin to bites and licks to the empath’s jaw. He was working his way down to the younger man’s neck.

When the doctor’s hand went down to cup Bec’s ass, the empath finally had to pull his mind out of the gutter to put a hand between them on Huesyth’s chest.

“Down, boy,” Bec breathed. The doctor pulled back to nuzzle their noses together, breathing just as heavy as the younger man was. “The door is open, Huesyth.”

“Being discovered is more your fear than mine, merendina,” Huesyth reminded, his accent thicker with lust.

Bec huffed softly, leaning up to press another kiss to the doctor’s lips. “You really enjoy kissing me in my classroom, don’t you?”

“It’s beginning to become a habit, isn’t it? But I can’t deny it’s an attractive look on you.”

The empath hummed softly. “Thank you but let’s just keep it to kissing.”

Letting his hands linger, Bec pulled away from his lover and walked around to the other side of the desk. “However, you can stay to help me with the Ripper profile if you’d like. Offer your expertise.”

Huesyth gave a small smile. “I’d love to, my dear.”

They worked for only another half hour, Huesyth going around to stand by Bec’s side on the other side of the desk, and were mid-conversation when Jack burst into the lecture hall with Beverly trailing behind him. “Bec. There you are and Dr. Cavalli. What a surprise.”

The two men looked up at the same time, Huesyth giving a polite smile despite noticing Bec’s immediate tension. Jack and Beverly came to a stop in front of them, the older agent looking practically giddy. “We have a lead. Would you care to, uh, help us catch the Ripper?”

Huesyth’s curiosity was piqued, so much so that he was willing to give Jack a pass on him yet again interrupting his time with Bec. “How could I refuse?”

 

The missing ambulance that Beverly had tracked down sat quietly alone, tucked into a cove where it usually wouldn’t be able to be seen from the road. The FBI SUVs slowly rolled up near the vehicle and SWAT agents poor out to make a tight formation around the vehicle. Firstly, Jack and Beverly moved to the back of the ambulance with the SWAT, guns drawn and trained to the doors, as Bec and Huesyth remained near the front of the SUVs. Jack gave the signal and the SWAT wrenched the doors. They couldn’t hear the quick exchange between Jack and the killer they found inside until the agent looked over his shoulder and yelled to them.

“Dr. Cavalli!”

At the sound of his name, Huesyth moved forward quickly with Bec at his side. They came up to the opened doors to see the paramedic with his hands buried into the side of a man that he had laid out on a gurney.

“I need you to assess the situation here, doctor,” Jack explained, keeping his glare trained on the killer.

Almost with no hesitation, Huesyth climbed up into the ambulance without even casting a glance to the killer he was sliding in next to. He observed the wound that the killer had his hands haphazardly shoved into.

“He was removing his kidney,” Huesyth noticed before adding firmly. “Poorly. I can stop the bleeding.”

“Do it,” Jack said.

The doctor shoved off his suit jacket, rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt and snapping on a pair of rubber gloves so he could slide his hands into place where the killer had his. Working quickly to aid in the repair of the damages the killer caused. Or at least stop the bleeding before it could be worsened.

“Have you got it?” Jack asked.

“I’ve got it.”

“Mr. Silvestri, put your hands behind your head and exit the vehicle slowly. Do it.”

The paramedic raised his bloody, gloved hands, stepping out of the open side door to give Huesyth space in the ambulance.

“On the ground. On your knees,” Jack demanded as SWAT swarmed the man and cuffed him.

Hesitantly, Bec stepped out of the shadows and into the light illuminating from the inside of the ambulance. He watched as Huesyth performed impromptu surgery to save the victim’s life, the doctor’s careful hands holding the man’s kidney in to keep him from bleeding to death. They meet eyes over the body briefly and Bec asked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Bec,” The doctor answered simply before Huesyth’s gaze was drawn back to where he was working.

 

“I have a butcher who carries sow's blood. Centrifugate... Separate the matter from the water to create a transparent liquid. Serve with tomatoes in suspension and everybody will love the sweet taste,” Huesyth finally looked up from the dishes he was preparing. “Are you sure you can't stay?”

Unlike the finely dressed professional sous-chefs that were circling around Huesyth for his dinner party, Bec remained in his flannel and heavy jacket but with a nice bottle of wine tucked under his arm.

“Uh, I don't think I would be very good company,” Bec replied from the other side of the doctor’s counter, shifting from foot to foot self consciously.

“I disagree,” Huesyth affirmed. “Most of these people you have already conversed with Rosa.”

“I didn’t do a lot of actual conversing that night,” Bec huffed with a chuckle.

It drew a soft laugh from the taller man. “They enjoyed you nonetheless. But Alana is among the attendees tonight so I guess it’s for the best but before you go, what became of Mr. Silvestri's donor?”

Bec raised an eyebrow at the doctor and offered a soft smile. “You saved his life.”

Abruptly, Huesyth paused momentarily in his movements. “It’s been a long time since I used a scalpel on anything but a pencil.”

Bec considered that briefly, before deciding that he might as well get to know the man he was secretly dating. He asked. “Why'd you stop being a surgeon?”

“I killed someone…” Huesyth responded. “Or, more accurately, I couldn't save someone. But it felt like killing them.”

The empath furrowed his brow slightly. “You were an Emergency Room surgeon. It had to have happened from time to time.”

“It happened one time too many for my liking,” Huesyth stated. “I transferred my passion for anatomy into the culinary arts. I fix minds instead of bodies, and no one's died as a result of my therapy.”

Bec chuckled again but his smile quickly withered. “I have to go. I have a date with the Chesapeake Ripper.”

The empath placed the bottle of wine on the counter in front of him and Huesyth continued. “Or would it be Rippers?”

“Devon Silvestri was harvesting organs, but not with the Ripper,” Bec said firmly. “There's no connection between them. There never was.”

“Jack must be devastated,” Huesyth commented without looking up.

“I imagine he is. Enjoy the wine.”

Gently, Huesyth thanked him as the empath turned and exited the kitchen.

 

When the dinner was ready, Huesyth stood at the head of the table as his guests applauded enthusiastically over the magnificent feast laid out meticulously in front of them. Alana is among the guests clapping for their gracious host as she is seated directly to Huesyth’s left.

The doctor raised a hand to silence the applause. “Before we begin, you must all be warned: nothing here is vegetarian.”

That raised a chorus of quiet chuckles throughout the room and the doctor smiled. “Bon appétit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NBC's Hannibal, nor its script and characters, and I don't make any money off of this fic. I rewrote it for me and a friend of mine purely for fun as a way to explore the events but with our original characters and just decided to start posting it.
> 
> New chapter every Wednesday!!


	8. “Fromage”

Bec tugged the broken bulb out of the heat lamp set up above Monday’s tank, the brightly colored Okeetee corn snake peering up at him curiously as he worked. The turned off lamp made the part of the wall her tank was against darker compared to the rest of the room. He checked the inside of the socket to ensure that the bulb didn’t melt the metal ring holding it in place.

When he set the old bulb aside, a distant sound caught his attention, however. As soon as he noticed, it seemed to immediately stop. He looked over either shoulder at the tanks as if making a mental checklist of each snake as if they could’ve actually made a noise like that. He returned to work and screwed in the new bulb, flicking the lamp back on for Monday.

Suddenly, the sound began again, this time seemingly closer and now he could recognize it as the whining and shrieking of some kind of animal being attacked. It wailed again, a distant, almost imperceptible cry followed by barking and snarling, most likely from whatever was attacking it.

He moved quickly, shrugging on a coat and making his way outside. He scanned over the snow-covered yard and the treeline surrounding his home but another farther out sound carried to his ears. It was coming from the woods across the field to the left of the house. Following it almost without thought, Bec slowed as he reached the middle of the field to listen. He stood and listened intently but the sound now seemed to bounce off in all directions without any traceable location.

Suddenly, it all went quiet.

Bec held his breath, listening for one last, pitiful whimper as the animal was killed but nothing seemed to come. He stood there a moment in the middle of the snowy field, unsure of what to do next.

 

“If it wasn't a coyote, the coyotes probably got it. Probably got it even if it was a coyote,” Bec specified as Alana marched back through the dead grass and snow towards the empath.

“You're not expecting to find it alive, are you?” She asked, the two moving back towards the house in the distance. They had given the field a thorough once over and found nothing to suggest an animal attack even took place.

“We'll be lucky to find a paw.”

After a quick pause, Alana asked. “So, you invited me over to help you collect animal parts?”

Bec chuckled. “I invited you over on the off chance we found it alive. It's hard for me to wrangle a wounded animal by myself. Did you think it was a date?”

“Honestly, it never crossed my mind,” Alana simpered.

That was a relief to the empath and Bec laughed softly. “That’s good.”

Alana shrugged slightly. “You just don't seem like you date.”

“Funny,” Bec deadpanned. “Jack said the same thing when he interrupted my date to go chase someone who turned out not to be The Ripper. Do I just seem too broken to date?”

“You’re not broken,” Alana reminded but he didn’t miss the quick look of surprise at Bec saying he was actually with someone.

“What's your excuse?” Bec questioned.

“For not dating? Why are you assuming I don't date?”

“You assumed I didn’t.” Bec raised a teasing eyebrow at the woman. “Do you?”

“No,” Alana relinquished. “Seems like something for somebody else. I'm sure I'll become that somebody someday, but right now I think too much.”

“So, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna try to think less, or are you just gonna wait till it happens naturally?”

“I haven't thought about it.”

Bec stopped in his tracks to scan around over the icy underbrush surrounding them. Alana caught on to the puzzlement in his face. “Are you seeing anything?”

“Uh, no, actually. I'm not even seeing any tracks. I mean, except for the ones we made.”

 

“I have a lot of respect for you,” Franklyn started. He seemed more troubled than usual which was surprising to see. “Since we can't be friends, or... you're not comfortable with that, I found myself looking at my friends through your eyes, imagining what your diagnosis might be.”

Huesyth nodded slightly. “So you become the psychoanalyst?”

“I become you,” Franklyn explained, motioning to the doctor sitting across from him.

“Who are you psychoanalyzing?”

With a sigh, Franklyn answered. “My friend Tobias. I... Googled ‘psychopaths’. Went down the checklist, and I was a little surprised to see how many boxes I had checked.”

“Why were you so curious to Google?” Huesyth asked, vaguely amused by Franklyn’s internet psychoanalysis.

“He's been saying very dark things and then saying just kidding. A lot. It started to seem kind of crazy.”

“Psychopaths are not crazy,” Huesyth corrected firmly. “They're fully aware of what they do and the consequences of those actions.”

“Would you diagnose someone like Tobias as a psychopath?” Franklyn questioned. “Or, uh, are you supposed to diagnose other people in front of me? Do you... would you rather just talk about me?”

“Not at all.”

Franklyn furrowed his brow at the doctor. “Are you bored with me?”

 _Yes, maddeningly so._ “No. This is your hour, Franklyn. We will talk about whatever you would like to talk about.”

“I'd like to talk about Tobias,” Franklyn said with a sure nod. “Perhaps you can help me analyze him.”

His choice of words was curiously familiar as the other man tried to mimic the doctor’s mannerisms. Huesyth had to fight back a sigh as he said. “I'm not analyzing your friend. I'm analyzing your perception of him. It may help you know yourself better. You could be projecting onto him what you consider to be your flaws.”

Franklyn suddenly seemed haunted by a thought. “Does that mean that I'm a psychopath?”

“You're not a psychopath. Although you may be attracted to them.”

 

The finely dressed man sat alone, center stage in the empty theatre with a single spotlight shining down on him. His head was forced back, however, mouth agape and teeth broken so that the neck of a cello jammed down in his gullet. His throat sliced open with the flaps of flesh affixed to metal hooks to keep it out of the way of the strings pulled taught in his neck.

Jack led Bec up onto the stage as the various police officers moved to leave it. “The victim is Douglas Wilson, a member of the Baltimore Metropolitan Orchestra's brass section... A trombone player. He was killed shortly after his last performance. Blunt force trauma to the back of the head.”

Bec circled the body slowly, coming to a stop a few paces in front of it. “His killer brought him here to... put on a show.”

The older agent gave him a curious look. “Bec, is it me, or is it becoming easier for you to look?”

“I tell myself... It's purely an intellectual exercise,” The empath said as he drew the bottle of aspirin from his jacket pocket.

His shoulders became heavy as the serpent crept into his peripheral vision. “ **He doesn’t even care about what this is doing to you.** ”

“Well, in the narrow view of forensics, that's exactly what it is.”

“That's not any easier, Jack,” Bec said as he tossed back two aspirins dry. “I shake it off, keep on looking.”

“Good,” Jack said. He drew nearer to the empath and the snake hissed, loudly and violently, into Bec’s ear as the older agent approached. “You shake it off. Get to work. We'll come back in when you're ready for us.”

Jack motioned with his head to Beverly who was observing the cello bow left on the side of the stage. They both left, shutting the doors to the auditorium as they did, much to the relief of the snake resting on Bec’s shoulders. As Bec removed his glasses from his face and slipped them into his jacket pocket, the snake began speaking again.

“ **Is the FBI so incompetent that they have to risk your health in order to get answers?** ”

“Stop talking to me when I’m working.”

The snake paused before saying. “ **You deserve better, my dear.** ”

“I want to help people. I want to use this ability for something good. _Stop_ trying to ruin this for me.”

Again, the snake paused and Bec was about to get work when it cut in. “ **It will kill you...** **_or I will._ **”

The empath was about to answer that barely concealed threat from his subconscious when the pressure on his shoulders seemed to disappear. He looked about and saw that the snake wasn’t anywhere in sight. He decided that it was better to get to work before anyone walked in on him talking to himself.

His eyes closed and he could sense the world around him darkening as the pendulum swung. He back stepped away from the dead man until he was off the stage again, climbing down to sit in a seat on the front row to observe the body from afar. The body’s throat closed itself back up again and with another blink, Bec stood over the freshly killed man he had laid out on a table in front of him. _A knife was clutched in his hand._

“I split open his throat from the outside to reveal the trachea and expose the vocal cords.”

_The killer made the long incision above the man’s collarbone, flaying open the front of his throat to slice open a piece of his trachea to be removed._

“I open his throat from the inside using the neck of a cello.”

_The killer slid the neck between the dead man’s teeth before ramming it down his throat to meet the incisions he made._

_The killer approached the body again, observing a powdery white residue on the victim’s throat._

“Powder on the wound. Rosin from the bow.”

_He circled the body to stand behind it._

“I wanted to play him. I wanted to create a sound. My sound. This... is my design.”

_The killer grasped the neck of the cello emerging from the dead man’s mouth, raising his bow to the exposed cords of the man’s throat to run it across them. The sound was deep, bone-chilling, enough to rattle the soul. Eerily reverberating against the walls of the auditorium. Until another noise broke up the long notes. Slow, steady claps of applause that made Bec abruptly stop, opening his eyes to peer into the supposedly empty audience._

_Among the vacant chairs, with a lone spotlight shining down on him, sat Garret Jacob Hobbs. The pale-faced, milky-eyed body of Garret Jacob Hobbs clapping steadily for Bec’s performance with the inky snake coiled around his neck like a scarf._

 

“I worry that I've made Franklyn feel powerless,” Huesyth began, Bedelia listening intently in front of him. “He wants to be my friend. His obsession with me is interfering with his progress. I'm considering referring him to another doctor.”

“Referrals can be complicated,” Bedelia explained. “I referred you to another psychiatrist. You refused.”

Huesyth shrugged slightly. “I'm more tenacious than Franklyn.”

“Why were you so tenacious?” She asked.

He paused, gazing out the large windows as he thought. “I feel protective of you. You support me as a colleague and psychiatrist and as a human being. I want to be supportive of you after what happened.”

At his admission, he could see a spike of uneasiness cross her face but she tried to hide it. “I'm not the only psychiatrist who's ever been attacked by a patient.”

With a soft well-placed sigh, he continued. “I hesitated to even bring up the subject of an obsessive patient because of your traumatic experience.”

“Huesyth,” Bedelia said firmly. “I'm _your_ psychiatrist, you're not mine.”

It sounded like she was reminding herself more than she was telling him.

 

The empath remained silent from where he was sitting nearby the body as the three scientists work near the cut open throat of the victim that was laid out on the morgue slab.

“Played him like a fiddle,” Brian commented as he observed the exposed vocal cords.

“Along with rosin powder, we found sodium carbonate, sulfur dioxide, lye, and olive oil in the wounds,” Beverly listed off, peering back over her shoulder at Bec but the other man didn’t look up at her.

“What is the deal with the olive oil?” Brian questioned with a furrowed brow.

Jimmy added from Beverly’s right side. “Sure wasn’t making a salad.”

Brian motioned to the wounds. “He removed anything non-muscular or fatty from around the vocal folds. The cords themselves were treated with a sulfur dioxide solution.”

“The sulfur dioxide had the effect of hardening the vocal cords,” Jimmy added. The empath knew the older man was looking at him. They were all waiting for some form of reply so he finally swallowed the lump in his throat.

“Made them easier to play,” Bec explained. He focused through the dull but persistent sound rattling in his head, glowering at the dead man on the table. “Had to open you up to get a decent sound out of you.”

When the comment actually registered with them, the scientists gave the troubled empath a slow glance but managed to shake it off when Bec’s staring finally ceased and the man buried his face in his hands.

“You pick it up and can't play it, he'll put you down and play you,” Beverly finally joked to break the awkward air.

“He took the time to whiten the vocal cords before playing them,” Brian pointed out.

Dropping his hands, Bec spoke up again. “It's not about whitening them. It was about, um, increasing elasticity.”

Beverly nodded in understanding. “He treated the vocal cords the same way you treat catgut string.” She earned odd looks from her co-workers. “Yes, I played the violin.”

Bec finally pulled himself up from his seat to address the three without taking his eyes off the body. “This takes a steady hand. A certain kind of confidence. He's killed before.”

“Like this?” Brian asked.

“No, not like this. This is a skilled musician trying a new instrument.”

 

The office was significantly darker during the day. That was the first thing that Bec noticed when he showed up earlier than expected. The overhead lights weren’t on so the room was left to be lit only by the sun that came through the thinly curtained windows.

“Among the first musical instruments were flutes carved from human bone,” Huesyth said.

Bec stepped calmly over to the doctor’s desk where Huesyth was standing in front of. “This murder was a performance.”

“Every life is a piece of music,” The doctor explained. “Like music, we are finite events, unique arrangements, sometimes harmonious, sometimes dissonant.”

Bec ran his hand across the back of Huesyth’s leather office chair. “Sometimes not worth hearing again.”

“He’s a poet and a psychopath.”

The empath added. “And a craftsman. He was shrinking and tanning the vocal cords.”

“Like turning iron wire into musical steel string. Was there olive oil?” Huesyth asked as he came to settle at one end of his desk.

Bec, on the other end, affirmed. “Yes.”

“Whatever sound he was trying to produce, it was an authentic one. Olive oil hasn't been used in the production of catgut for over a century. It was said to increase the life of the strings and create a sweeter, more melodic sound.”

That didn’t sit well with Bec. The sound he heard wasn’t sweet and he could still feel it rattling his bones. “No, I hear what he was playing behind my eyes when I close them.”

“What do you see behind closed eyes?”

The first thought brought to mind was the lifeless Garret Jacob Hobbs sitting back in the auditorium chairs. The second one was the snake wrapping around Bec’s neck to strangle the life out of him.

Instead, he answered more honestly. “Um... I see myself.”

The empath could feel Huesyth studying him from the other end of the desk, probably digging for deeper meaning but he inquired. “You said the killer was performing. Who was he performing for?”

“I don’t know,” Bec said quickly, breaking eye contact with Huesyth to look at the floor. “Um... Patron of the arts? A fellow musician? Or... Another killer?”

They moved again, Bec back behind the doctor’s chair with Huesyth straight across from him. The doctor never taking his eyes off the empath as he moved. “It's a serenade.”

“No, this isn't how he kills,” Bec explained, stepping out from behind the chair to begin closing the distance between them. “Normally, he doesn't kill for an audience.”

“And you believe he risked getting caught for a serenade?” Huesyth asked.

“I believe... he wants to show someone how well he plays.”

 

A different day, but the same boredom overtook him as he took his seat across from Franklyn. The short man started, seemingly shaken. “Do you remember when I said Tobias was saying very dark things?”

Huesyth reminded. “I made note of it.”

“Well, he said that he wanted to cut someone's throat and play it like a violin,” Franklyn confessed. “They found somebody whose throat was cut and played like a violin.”

Huesyth stared at the other man. “So you think Tobias killed that man at the symphony?”

“I don't know,” Franklyn worried with a shrug. “I-I... If I do, do I have to report it?”

Cocking his head slightly, Huesyth asked. “Do you have a reason not to?”

“What if I'm wrong?” Franklyn fretted.

“What if you’re right?” Huesyth shot back.

Franklyn quickly shook his head, obviously distressed. “I'm _always_ wrong. I don't know. Why would he say something like that to me?”

“Why do you think?”

Based on Franklyn’s face, it took longer for him to say the reason than to think of it. He mumbled in response after a few moments. “'Cause he knows I'd tell you.”

 

Cautiously, Huesyth slowed as he approached the door of the Chordophone string shop, hearing a haunting melody floating out from within the building. The doors cracked open and one of Huesyth’s gloved hand shot up to silence the bell dangling above before it could ring. He stood inside the door momentarily, listening to the song.

The floorboards under his feet creaked softly as he passed by the wall displays of various string instruments until the playing from another room abruptly stopped. A moment later, Tobias entered from the back room to find Huesyth admiring the strings of one of the displayed cellos.

“You're Franklyn's therapist, Dr. Cavalli,” Tobias recognized, his voice still monotone. Almost bored even as he greeted. “Nice to see you again.”

Huesyth feigned an attempt at remembering his name. “Is it Tobias?”

“Yes.”

With a nod, the doctor motioned around the room at the instruments. “Your strings are all gut.”

“I also carry steel and polymer strings, if you prefer,” Tobias explained as he stepped away to put his violin away.

“I prefer gut. Harps strung with gut still make music after two thousand years,” Huesyth says as he plucks the string of one of the instruments. Its deep sounding reverberating.

“I didn't hear you ring the bell,” Tobias addressed from behind the counter.

“I didn't want you to stop playing. Was it an original composition?”

“Something I've been writing. You compose?” Tobias asked with a raised brow.

“I discover. Can't impose traditional composition on an instrument that's inherently free form,” Huesyth said, approaching the other side of the counter to stand across from the man.

Narrowing his eyes slightly, Tobias questioned. “What instrument would that be?”

“The Theremin. It can generate any pitch throughout its range, even those between conventional notes.”

“And so can a violin or a trombone.”

“It seems we are both comfortable playing between conventional notes,” Huesyth commented. He knew that Tobias noticed the underlying meaning but he moved on. “I hear the symphony's looking for a new trombonist.”

Tobias finally broke eye contact with the doctor to step out from behind the counter, muttering in response. “Altogether horrible what happened.”

The doctor shrugged slightly. “Not altogether. It's an unfortunate way to leave the symphony, yes, but I can't help thinking the orchestra will be better for it.”

Tobias must’ve known he was being baited and gave a polite but empty smile. “At least the brass section. What brings you here looking for gut?”

“My harpsichord needs new strings. It's making an awful noise. Perhaps you could help.”

 

Evening descended on his home and he was left with the light on his desk to illuminate his station as he tied a fly. The house was quiet, the only noise is the soft hum of the heat lamps in the other room and the rustle of nature outside. Then Bec heard the faint sound of scratching, an animal chattering softly that drew his attention to the stone fireplace across the living room from him. His movements stuttered and, slowly, he rose from his seat. The closer he got the more frantic the animal’s scratching became. He tried to look up into the chimney from the opening but all he was met with was pitch blackness.

He stood up straight and pressed an ear against the wall above the mantle in an attempt to listen better and was met with desperate scratching and whimpering.

 

Bec stared into the gaping, jagged hole hammered into the chimney, surrounded by ruptured plaster and broken bricks.

“What kind of animal was it?” Alana asked from behind him, still in her overcoat as she too stared at the destruction.

“It might've been a raccoon,” Bec said over his dust-covered shoulder, his hands were split and hurting from digging around in the bricks and drywall with a hammer.

He could tell she gave him a worried expression. “Might've been?”

Bec sighed softly. “Well, by the time I knocked a hole in the chimney, it climbed out the top.”

Alana considered Bec as surreptitiously as possible, nevertheless Bec still managed to notice her studying glance. She shrugged slightly. “Well, at least it got out.”

Bec finally turned to her, idly patting the palm of his hand with the side of the hammer he was still holding. “What are you doing out?”

“I thought I'd come over, make some noise, shoo away any predators at your door.” Her eyes went back to the gaping hole as she quirked an eyebrow at it. “It looks like you're making plenty of noise all by yourself.”

Defeatedly, Bec approached the fireplace again to set the hammer down on the mantle. “You avoided being in a room alone with me essentially since I met you. You were smooth about it.”

“Evidently not smooth enough,” She said with an easy smile.

“And now you're making house calls?” Bec continued, approaching her again.

She was open with him, always had been. Even when Alana was very blatantly avoiding him when they were working. He wasn’t offended by it, more confused than anything else. But Alana explained. “Just a drive-by on my way home. Since you're not my patient.”

“No. I’m not.”

It was odd. The empath didn’t even think there was that little space between them but a second later their faces seemed to draw together until lips pressed against one another. He had no idea which one of them initiated it first. But it was interrupted by a deep rumble of a hiss that seemed to bubble up from the back of Bec’s mind. It was enough to make a strike of fear shoot up his spine. The kiss lasted barely a few seconds before they both seemed to pull apart at the same time.

Startled, Bec immediately peered over his shoulder to see if it was one of his snake’s that made that sound but all of them were asleep and buried in their tanks.

“I’m confused,” Was the first thing Bec heard Alana say after that.

Bec looked back to the woman and gave her a slight nod. “I understand. Thi-this wasn’t very thought out.”  
“Bec-” Alana started and already he could hear the excuses starting.

“Alana, it’s okay. It… it didn’t feel right.”

She gave him a pitying look but looked to the floor for a moment at the rubble that scattered around them. “It...it really didn’t.”

They didn’t know each other well. Not really. Besides the odd friendly conversation, they had barely spoken about anything outside of work. But there they were kissing in his living room for some reason.

“We don’t have to talk about it again,” Bec explained, an offer of an escape as he took another step back from her. “I can go back to being a professional curiosity of yours.”

“You’re not just some experiment, Bec,” She tried to remedy, shaking her head.

The empath scoffed softly. “We both know that’s not true. It’s fine, Alana.”

Alana opened her mouth like she was about to respond before shutting it again. Sighing, she tried again. “If I were my patient, my advice to me... would be don't do this. I have to follow my own advice,” She finally said. “I'm gonna go ahead and leave now. Goodnight, Bec.”

She pulled away and exited out the door before the conversation could get any more awkward, Bec watching as she left him alone among the rubble.

 

“More wine?” Huesyth asked, standing from his seat and moving around to the other side of the table to refill Tobias’s glass. “A late harvest Vidal from Linden.”

“Oh, Virginia,” Tobias repeated. “I thought it was French.”

“The Virginia wine revolution is upon us,” Huesyth commented before returning to his seat. “I apologize for being so blunt, Tobias, but I have to ask... Did you kill that trombonist?”

The other man gave a slight tip of his head. Otherwise,  he wasn’t even trying to be defensive. “Do you really have to ask?”

“No,” Huesyth replied simply. “Just changing the subject.”

“Franklyn gave you my message.”

Huesyth continued. “The murder is being investigated by the FBI. They're going to find you.”

“Let them,” Tobias said.

“You want to get caught?” Huesyth asked.

“I want them to try. They may investigate me because I own a string shop. They'll send men to investigate, and I'll kill them. Then I'll find Franklyn and kill him. Then I would disappear.”

A not very detailed plan but seemingly effective enough. Huesyth took a sip from his wine glass before saying. “Don’t kill Franklyn.”

“I've been looking forward to it. Actually…” Tobias began, leaning forward with a smirk breaking over his face. “I was going to kill you.”

He wouldn’t be the first to tell Huesyth that but he was one of the least threatening. “Of course you were. I'm lean. Lean animals yield the toughest gut. What stopped you from wanting to kill me? Or have you stopped?”

“I stopped after I followed you one night. Out of town. To a lonely road. To a bus yard.”

With his hand tightening around his fork, Huesyth’s face went still as he finally peered up at Tobias again. Smugly thinking he had won. “You're reckless, Tobias.”

“I'm not going to tell anyone what I saw you do and do well,” Tobias said, leaning back in his chair again. “So my recklessness doesn't concern you.”

After he sipped from his wine, Huesyth expressed. “It concerns me because you won't be drawing attention just to yourself.”

Tobias paused briefly and seemingly tried to change up his approach. “I could use a friend. Someone who can understand me. Who thinks like I do and can see the world and the people in it the way I do.”

Huesyth studied the man across from him and fought back the urge to roll his eyes. “I know exactly how you feel. But I don't want to be your friend.”

As the doctor moved away, Tobias asked. “Then why did you invite me here for dinner? Wasn't just to restring your harpsichord.”

“I was going to kill you.” Tobias couldn’t help but glance at the food on his plate before going back to Huesyth. “I didn't poison you, Tobias. I wouldn't do that to the food.”

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Huesyth was surprised but didn’t break the eye contact with the man until Tobias asked, proud and biting. “Expecting someone?”

“No.”

After a second longer of glaring, Huesyth finally turned to go address whoever was at his door, feeling Tobias’s steely gaze following him out. He opened the door into his mudroom to see Bec shaking off the snowflakes from his jacket and tossing it over a stool to dry.

When the empath saw him enter the room, he said. “Alana and I kissed.” Before passing by Huesyth to enter his home.

The doctor blinked as he passed, wishing that the statement didn’t make his chest feel noticeably tighter. “Well, come in.”

He followed swiftly after Bec, sure that Tobias would be sitting in wait for whoever entered again but, when they did make their way into the dining room, they found it empty.

As they came to a stop at the table, Bec noticed the two barely touched table settings. “You have a guest?”

“A colleague. You just missed him.” Huesyth said as he saw the garden door sitting open, moving over to shut and lock it.

“Didn't finish his dinner,” Bec commented, obviously trying to put off the main topic of conversation on his mind.

“An urgent call of some sort,” The doctor explained. “He had to leave suddenly. This benefits you because I have dessert for two.”

Awkwardly, Bec followed after the doctor into the kitchen as he used a kitchen cloth to retrieve two ramekins of bread pudding from the oven. Finally, Huesyth asked. “Tell me, what was Alana's reaction?”

Bec couldn’t help but sigh, almost out of shame. “Same as mine. We were both weirded out by it. I don’t even know how it happened.”

Huesyth placed the pan with the ramekins on the counter and swallowed back the foul taste that formed in his mouth at the next words he spoke. “If you’re unhappy in our relationship we can certainly discuss it more at length to see if you’d be more comfortable in a more open layout.”

With his eyes widening slightly, Bec seemed surprised at the suggestion before exclaiming. “ _No._ No, no. God, no. Huesyth, I’m happy with you. I really am. Happier than I’ve been in a long time… Please, don’t think I’m unhappy with you, Huesyth.”

Huesyth let that sink in a moment, opening his mouth to probably say something he’d regret but the words wouldn’t come out. He couldn’t even force himself to be upset with the younger man. “The fact that you felt compelled to drive an hour in the snow to tell me about it dispels any doubts I would have about your loyalty,” He said as he removed the bread from their pans to be plated more tastefully on plates.

Bec took in a deep breath. “I just… I wanted to see you.”

It managed to melt the freezing shield that was creeping up over Huesyth’s heart, swallowing down the needless anger that was bubbling up. It wasn’t Bec’s fault. “How did it feel when you kissed her?”

The empath shook his head. “It felt… wrong. I-It was weird. I don’t know.”

As if trying to alleviate the tension, Huesyth said. “I hope that isn’t how you’ve felt when we kiss then.”

Bec went quiet briefly, shrugging slightly. “I like kissing you.”

A smile quirked the sides of Huesyth’s lips but he finally had to ask. “Was there a reason that Alana was with you?”

The empath was physically more uncomfortable with explaining his situation. “I heard an animal trapped in my chimney. Um... Broke through the wall to get it out. I didn't find anything inside. Alana showed up, she looked at me... I... maybe her face changed. I don't know. But, um, she knew.”

“What did she know, Bec?” Huesyth questioned without looking up from the whipped cream he was dolloping onto the top of the bread pudding.

“There was no animal in the chimney. It was only in my head. I sleepwalk. I get headaches, nosebleeds. I am hearing things…” The empath listed his symptoms as he approached the other side of the counter. “I feel unstable.”

“That's why you kissed her. A clutch for balance,” The doctor explained as he dressed the pudding with a chocolate drizzle. “You said yourself what you do is not good for you.”

“Well, unfortunately, I am good for it.”

“Are you still hearing this killer's serenade behind your eyes?”

Bec gave a bitter chuckle. “Well, it's our song.”

The doctor stayed quiet, finally sliding the prepared bread over to Bec even if it seemed the shorter man was far too distracted to really enjoy eating. He gladly accepted it though, picking at it with his offered fork as Huesyth folded the kitchen cloth back up. Suddenly, his movements hesitated as an idea popped into mind.

“I hesitate telling you this, as it borders on a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality,” Huesyth began, gaining Bec’s full attention. “A patient told me today he suspects a friend of his may be involved with the murder at the symphony.”

The empath seemed to deflate but he ran his hands down his face, taking a shaky breath before responding. “Right, um... Um... what did he say about his friend?”

“It’s Tobias. He owns a music store in Baltimore, specializing in string instruments. Perhaps you should interview him.”

Huesyth didn’t miss the widening of the younger man’s eyes at the sound of the name. “He’s the one from the opera?”

“He is,” Huesyth responded with a nod.

“And what if he recognizes me?”

The doctor gave a small smile. “I believe Rosa Cavalli was a rather convincing cover. I’m sure your appearance would seem strikingly different from her.”

Bec looked wary but nodded slightly, mumbling a simple. “Yeah.”

It was almost innocent, the way Huesyth sent him into the lion’s den.

 

Huesyth stared ahead, an amused glint brightening his eye. “For the first time in a long while, I see a possibility of friendship.”

Bedelia looked over her shoulder as she took up her notebook from the side table. “Is there someone new in your life?”

“I met a man much like myself. Same hobbies, same worldviews, but I'm not interested in being his friend. I'm curious about him, and that got me curious about friendship.”

Bedelia returned to her seat across from Huesyth with a curious expression. “Whose friendship are you considering?”

“Oddly enough, a colleague and a patient, not unlike how I'm a colleague and a patient of yours. We've discussed him before.”

“Bec Reyes,” She said. “From the way you’ve spoken about him in the past, it would seem you two have passed simple ‘friendship’.”

Huesyth gave half-hearted shrug in agreement. “He's nothing like me. We see the world in different ways, yet he can assume my point of view.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “By profiling the criminally insane?”

“As good a demonstration as any. I find it reassuring.”

“It's nice when someone sees us, Huesyth,” Bedelia offered. “Or has the ability to see us. It requires trust. Trust is difficult for you.”

He gazed off again to the windows, his eyes following the movement of the trees as they swayed in the breeze. “You've helped me to better understand what I want in a relationship, and what I don't.”

“Someone _worthy_ of your attention.”

The word ‘worthy’ rang true for Huesyth, and he could tell she saw it. He responded simply. “Yes.”

“You spend a lot of time building walls, Huesyth. It's natural to want to see if someone is clever enough to climb over them.”

 

The following day, Bec was approaching the front of the string shop with two local Baltimore police officers flanking him. The bell above the door rung loudly as they entered and almost ran into the familiar face of Tobias as they moved into the storefront. The tall man being followed closely by a young boy holding a book of sheet music at his side.

The empath slipped his hand into his pants pocket, making sure to push his jacket out of the way to flash his badge. “Special Agent Bec Reyes with the FBI. Are you the owner?”

“Yes. Tobias Budge,” His face barely changed, even more eerie was the fact that his eyes still held little emotion with rest of his face. He couldn’t even pretend to be shocked by the presence of law enforcement. “I'm just showing one of my students out. Can I have a moment?”

Bec nodded. “Sure.”

The teen made a hurried exit at the presence of the officers with Tobias reminding him of a piece of music he was supposed to practice for next Saturday. The empath scanned over the instruments hung for display as Tobias turned back to address the three men. “What can I help you with?”

“We're investigating the death of Douglas Wilson. He was-” “The Trombonist.” Tobias knowingly interrupted.

“That's right.” The empath nodded in confirmation. “Did you know him?”

“I was aware of him,” Tobias explained. “Baltimore is a small town, and the cultural arts community is an even smaller one.”

“Well, that's why we're here, Mr. Budge.”

“I hear someone cut his throat and tried to play it with a bow,” Tobias said, motioning slightly to his own throat with his hand.

Bec’s brows drew together. “Why do you say try?”

Tobias’ face didn’t change. His facial features were as smooth as a statue. “The strings have to be treated. You can't just open somebody up and draw a bow across their innards and expect to produce a sound.”

“The vocal cords were chemically treated, uh, similar to how catgut string is treated. We kept those details out of the press,” Bec explained as he passed Tobias to enter the parlor that the taller man had just exited from.

“Looking for someone who knows how to manufacture gut strings?” Tobias asked as he followed in behind the agent.

“Anybody leap to mind?”

“Mine are imported from Italy. Best catgut is,” Tobias explained, handing Bec a bundle of catgut strings, but the empath didn’t take his eyes off the taller man. “The string section of the Baltimore Metropolitan Orchestra refuses to play anything else.”

“More authentic,” Bec stated, handing the bundle back.

Tobias motioned to the shorter man with the bundle. “A richer, darker sound. Allows music to say what words can't.”

The sound of a horrible skidding across slick asphalt outside cut through the relative silence in the building, followed by a sickening thump and the pained cry of a dog. It made the empath startle, searching out the nearest window for any sign of it but seeing nothing.

“Something wrong?” He heard Tobias ask.

“Didn't you hear that?” Bec questioned.

One of the officers standing in the archway that lead into the storefront added. “I didn't hear anything.”

Tobias shared the same confused expression as the officers when Bec excused himself from the room, rushing out of the store and into the street only to be nearly hit by a passing truck. He stumbled back onto the sidewalk, eyes desperately searching around for any commotion or sign of a wounded animal. He saw nothing. He heard nothing.

There was _nothing_.

A pedestrian eyed the wild-eyed empath and kept walking. With shaking breaths, Bec shook out two aspirins into his palm and tossed them back, swallowing hard around the dry pills. He quickly scanned over the snowy street again, his face twisted in worry before he begrudgingly trudged back into the shop.

The bell above him rang and he was quick to apologize. “Sorry about that. I-”

But the store was empty. The space the officers had previously occupied was vacant. “Officers?” Bec called. When he got no reply, his hand gravitated towards his waist, pulling his gun from its holster. “ _Officers?_ ”

He moved steadily towards the parlor again, standing to the side and pushing the sliding door open again. Only to see the body one of the officers left in a pool of his own blood on the ground in front of the piano bench with a stake through his neck. The empath hurriedly dialed on his phone as he approached the body, putting his fingers the body’s neck to check for a pulse despite the slim chance of survival.

“I need ERT at Chordophone Strings, downtown Baltimore. Officer down,” He hung up the phone, sliding it back into his pocket when he heard a distant sound deeper in the store.

Bec stepped cautiously through another door with his gun still drawn, he followed the sound down an obscured staircase into the dark. He hugged the stone walls of the apparent basement, following every sharp corner until it opened up into a dimly lit room. The smell of the chemicals and dried blood was enough evidence for him to decipher what he was standing in. Even before he could make out the shapes of large jars aligned on a shelf filled with lengths of intestines inside them. Ropes of the strings lined the walls and racks as they were hung up to dry out. The empath moved through the eerie maze that the racks made, spotting a workbench of used tools and weapons.

Everything seemed to make a noise, Bec was even startled by the sound of the water draining from a sink that housed even more intestines being prepared for treatment.

However, his attention was drawn to the opaque hospital curtains pushed into a corner that seemed almost out of place in the dingy basement. A single light shined through from the other side of them, only giving a blurry outline of what could be behind them. He approached them carefully before throwing them back to see the other missing officer on his knees. His face was shoved into another sink of razor-sharp wires cutting deep into his face and neck.

Moving forward to check the surely dead man’s pulse, Bec only saw a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye before Tobias looped a multi-wired weapon over the empath’s head. Bec shoved his arms up between the wires to keep them from slicing through his face and throat, but the metal string still cut into him regardless. He struggled against the other man’s tightening grip until he could slip his gun up and fire it right next to his own ear. The sound was deafening in such close quarters but Tobias immediately released his hold, the wires coming free as Bec stumbled to the ground, clutching his ringing head.

Struggling to his feet, Bec chased after the retreating form of Tobias, firing off shots through the darkness of the basement in an attempt to hit him but he could see the sparks of them hitting the stone walls instead.

He could see Tobias already quickly scurrying back up the stairs and out of the empath’s sight.

 

Franklyn counted silently on his fingers, until, seven, eight, nine, and finally said. “Nine. Nine times. I can count on _two hands_ the number of times I've been _dumped_ by a psychiatrist.”

“I'm sorry, Franklyn,” Huesyth apologized again. “But I think you should see another doctor.”

“You're giving me a referral?”

“Yes, I am.”

“ _You_ were a referral!” Franklyn argued, obviously distraught.

“I am also a part of the problem,” Huesyth shot back, growing vexed. “You focus too much on your therapist, and not enough on your therapy.”

Franklyn sighed in frustration. “You lost respect for me because I wouldn't report Tobias, didn't you?”

Another voice cut into the conversation. “Report Tobias for what?”

Franklyn peered over Huesyth’s shoulder in shock at the aforementioned man shutting the waiting room entrance door behind him, the doctor, however, was far less surprised.

“Tobias…” Franklyn asked, rising from his seat along with Huesyth.

“I came to say goodbye, Franklyn,” Tobias explained as he moved into the room.

“What do you mean goodbye?” Franklyn questioned, making his way closer to the man. “Oh, my God. _Oh, my God_ , is that your blood?”

A piece of Tobias’s right ear seemed to have been shot off, blood trickled from the wound and stained the collar of his shirt. “I just killed two men. The police came to question me about the murder.”

Huesyth blinked at that but ignored the spike of anger and the nauseating twist of his gut at the thought, _could he have murdered Bec?_

“Okay…” Franklyn began softly as if trying to talk a kitten out of a tree. “You have to give yourself up right now. This plane is going down. Let it have a controlled descent. We can get you back up in the air again. There's rehabilitation for everyone.”

“Franklyn, I want you to leave now,” Huesyth commanded calmly.

“Stay _right_ where you are, Franklyn,” Tobias snapped.

The shorter man looked between the two before ending up back on Tobias, stepping towards the man glaring daggers into the doctor. “You've done a horrible thing, and... I know... that you wish to God that you didn't. But you did. And there's nothing you can do to change that. The only thing you can change is your future. Right? No? You're probably scared. You probably feel like you're all alone.”

His expression didn’t change or soften. Tobias shook his head and corrected. “I’m not alone.”

“That's right,” Franklyn agreed. “You're not alone. Nothing has happened in our relationship that you and I can't…”

With that, Huesyth had enough. He closed the short distance to snap Franklyn’s neck from behind with a grotesque _crack_ , dropping the man’s body to the floor like a cinder block at Tobias’s feet.

“I was looking forward to that,” Tobias grumbled.

“I saved you the trouble.”

Tobias tossed his jacket aside and allowed a wire whip to uncoil from his fist, spinning it around with precision and taking practiced swings at the doctor that Huesyth managed to dodge until Tobias planted a foot in his stomach. Though kicking him back, Huesyth recovered, pushing the rolling ladder out of his way to bring his arm up to block the wire again, allowing the sharp metal to wrap around his left forearm and dig into his skin. Huesyth threw a punch at the other man but Tobias dodged without releasing the wire leash he wrapped around his arm. The taller man dragged them along, smashing a glass tabletop over Huesyth’s other arm before the doctor slammed their foreheads together and threw him into his desk.

Whipping around with a letter opener in hand, Tobias left himself open to Huesyth hurdling himself at him until they both fly over the top of the desk. As he tried to scramble to his feet, Huesyth caught a kick to the face but managed to avoid the letter opener Tobias was slashing at him with. Though he tried to catch Tobias’s arm, he instead had the tip of the letter opener stabbed into his right leg, the taller two grabbing the doctor by the throat and slamming him back onto the desk to stab at him again if Huesyth didn’t catch his wrist. The doctor felt around the desktop before finally sinking a ballpoint pen into Tobias’s arm to leave a jagged wound, knocking the letter opener out of his hand.

Again, Tobias kicked and punched at the doctor until his back was against the ladder. He paused briefly to survey his brief victory before even finishing the kill and so when he tried to throw another punch, Huesyth dodge and allowed the man’s arm to go through the rungs of the ladder. He grabs ahold of the limb and breaks it at the elbow between the sturdy wood, ripping a scream of pain from Tobias. Releasing the limb, Tobias tried to swing at Huesyth with his nondominant hand but the doctor slammed his palm into the man’s throat, effectively rendering him breathless.

Tobias fell to his knees, coughing and grabbing at his throat, while Huesyth, bloody and battered, retrieved his handkerchief from his suit pocket and limped over to retrieve the heavy metal snake statue from its pedestal. As the other man bends over to hack onto the floor, Huesyth brings the statue down violently onto the back of Tobias’s head with a dull crack. Tobias falls over motionless on the floor and Huesyth lets out his first full breath before dropping the statue onto the ground. He stumbled slightly but used the handkerchief to push over the pedestal the statue resided on, before folding the cloth up and tucking it back into his suit pocket.

 

Minutes later, his office was crawling with FBI investigators and emergency responders. The corpses of Tobias and Franklyn were being zipped up into the body bags and whisked away by the coroners. Huesyth, however, was staring off into the middle distance from his desk chair, clutching onto the throbbing pain in his right leg. He was still angry. He thought killing Tobias would make him feel better or make his heart unclench but it _didn’t_. It was his fault it had happened. He was the one who sent Bec after Tobias even though he knew the killer would react violently when backed into a corner. It was Huesyth’s fault Bec was killed.

Movements out of the corner of his eye drew Huesyth’s attention to whoever had just entered the office and was greeted by Jack Crawford. The rage in him only grew until someone else moved in behind the older agent. The empath walked into view, observing the scene with a seemingly haunted expression. Huesyth knew that he was visibly relieved to see Bec alive and well and moving around the desk towards him.

“I was worried you were dead,” Huesyth admitted when Bec drew close and the empath smiled softly.

“Tobias Budge killed two Baltimore police officers,” Jack’s voice cut in, grinding on the doctor’s paper thin nerves. “Nearly killed an FBI special agent, and after all of that, his first stop is here, at your office.”

“He came to kill my patient,” Huesyth explained numbly, gazing at the body bag they were carting out as if traumatized.

“Your patient. Is that who Budge was serenading?” Bec asked and just the sound of his voice seemed to calm the relentless anger in Huesyth’s body.

“I don't know. Franklyn knew more than he was telling me. He told Mr. Budge that he didn't have to kill anymore... And then he broke Franklyn's neck, and then he attacked me.”

“You killed him?” Jack asked.

Huesyth swallowed heavily and replied meekly. “Yes.”

Bec continued. “Could Franklyn have been involved in whatever Budge was doing?”

“I thought this was a simple matter of poor choice in friends.”

“This doesn’t feel simple to me,” Jack divulged, moving away to study the crime scene further.

Not wasting another second, Bec sat on the edge of Huesyth’s desk, digging into the medical bag left on the desktop by one of the first responders. He removed a small bundle of gauze to dab away the blood trickling from the side of the doctor’s mouth when Tobias’s punches made him bite into his own cheek.

Gently, Bec said. “I feel like I've... dragged you into my world.”

So he was blaming himself just as much as Huesyth was. They really were quite the pair.

“I got here on my own,” Huesyth softly explained, wrapping his hand loosely around the empath’s bandaged wrist to stop Bec’s movements. He pulled the hand up to press a gentle kiss to the calloused skin. The doctor looked up at the younger man again with his eyes full of affection. “But I appreciate the company.”

 

The warm water slicked their skin and made a brilliant pink flush rise on either of their chests, Huesyth pressing delicate kisses against Bec’s neck. The empath whimpered softly at the affection but kept up with his steady washing of Huesyth’s torso, careful to avoid the bruises blooming under his skin. They tried to keep their bandaged wounds above the water in the tub but it was proving more difficult as Bec adjusted his position in Huesyth’s lap to grind down against his cock in slow, lazy circles.

He slid his unbandaged hand between them and took their cocks in hand, running clever fingers up and down the hot lengths. Digging his nails into Bec’s hip, Huesyth dragged the empath closer still and made the water slosh around them. Their chests pressed together and Bec wound his free arm around the back of Huesyth’s neck as he was pulled into frenzied, fang-filled kisses. The movements of his hand became jerky and Bec let a stuttered moan slip past his lips only to be swallowed by Huesyth.

“You’re beautiful, Bec,” Huesyth murmured.

The hand he had used to pull them closer slid up to wrap around Bec’s throat. He could feel the empath’s breath hitch under his grip before his face flushed darker, eyelashes fluttering. Bec pushed his neck more into the doctor’s hold and Huesyth purred at his eagerness, feeling the raised edges of the scar etched across his throat.

“Just look at that blush, those gorgeous lips…” Huesyth hummed, moving the pliant empath’s face side to side to take in each detail. He couldn’t believe that he almost lost him. “An even more beautiful mind. How can you be so perfect?”

“‘M not, Huesyth,” Bec tried to retort, but the doctor just squeezed tighter.

“Shhh, love. None of that nonsense.”

The empath whimpered pitifully through the hold and Huesyth risked the chance of ruining his bandages to bring his injured hand over Bec’s. He ran his clever fingers over their cocks, drawing more hitched moans from his lover before Bec’s body finally went rigid and he came between their stomachs. When his muscles were able to uncoil, his body seemed to melt against Huesyth’s front, burying his face in the doctor’s shoulder as the doctor brought himself to completion with a groan. Huesyth nuzzled against the empath’s damp hair, pressing gentle kisses to the side of his face.

They managed to finish cleaning themselves off before Bec pulled them out of the warm bathroom so that they could retreat to Huesyth’s room instead. The empath nestled into Huesyth’s arms under the sheets with his head against the older man’s shoulder and his brain was silent. His thoughts were one tracked but the track seemed more troubled. Even with Huesyth, the horrors of his day job seemed to follow him and he ran his nose against the column of the taller man’s neck to gain his attention.

Huesyth hummed softly, rubbing the curve of Bec’s back with his bandaged hand. “Something on your mind?”

Bec huffed faintly. “There’s always something on my mind.”

“Care to share it?”

The younger man hesitated briefly, finally muttering. “Sometimes I see a snake.”

Huesyth seemed to pause and Bec was about to defend himself before the doctor cut through the silence of the room. “What kind of snake?”

Not really the first question that Bec was expecting but he answered it. “Black, long, feathered on its back. It talks to me sometimes.”

“What does it say to you?” Huesyth questioned.

It had said lots of things to Bec. Some things crueler than others, other times it stared or tried to hurt him. But Bec swallowed all of those responses and went for something else. “T-That… that I’m too good for the FBI and solving these… crimes. That I should just go back to teaching rather than wasting my time.”

Huesyth went quiet again, nestling closer to the empath and mumbling to him. “What do you think, Bec?”

“Sometimes I agree,” The empath relented. “Other times I… I _want_ to be out there. With the blood and the bodies, figuring out the freak behind it all.”

“A natural savior instinct that comes with the intelligence you were blessed with,” Huesyth added. “You have a good heart, my dear. I fear one day it may land you in some rather dangerous waters.”

“Mmm, I think I’m already there considering I was just in a serial killer’s intestines workshop today,” Bec managed to joke.

Huesyth exhaled softly out of his nose. “I’m sorry you had to see something so ugly, Bec.”

“I can’t really say it was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

The empath could tell that Huesyth furrowed his brow at him. “Have you begun ranking the horrific things you’ve seen, love?”

“An unconscious decision. A clutch for order if you will.”

The doctor chuckled, pulling the empath closer to press a gentle kiss to his forehead. He murmured against Bec’s skin. “We don’t have to talk about this now if you don't want to.”

Sighing softly, Bec replied. “Not talking about the things that happen to me has never helped… plus I enjoy talking to you.”

Huesyth couldn’t help the smile that pulled at his face. “I enjoy talking to you as well, dear. But I think the exhaustion has finally hit me.”

Bec tipped his head to the side slightly, pulling himself up to press another kiss to the doctor’s lips. “We can sleep,” He agreed, settling back into his more comfortable position. “Goodnight, Huesyth.”

The doctor hesitated, seemingly shocked by the simple affection despite their intimacy, but soon ran a hand through Bec’s wild curls as his eyes slipped closed. “Goodnight, Bec.”

 

The days had passed but the FBI had finally finished its case and allowed Huesyth to return to his office. It was a bittersweet feeling in the fact that Bec spent a majority of those couple of days in Huesyth’s bed with him as they recovered from their minor injuries. The doctor would admit that he missed waking up to the majesty of the younger man. Especially on mornings where Bec would come down for breakfast in little more than Huesyth’s sweater. It definitely made Huesyth think that he should get injured more often if it would mean that Bec would spend his free time in the doctor’s home with him.

But he eventually had to see Bedelia again to resume his therapy and that managed to seal the fact that his impromptu vacation with the empath had ended.

He sat across from the older woman, fidgeting with his hands in front of him as if nervous. “I'm going to start seeing patients again. It's strange, thinking about going back to daily practice.”

“Well, it's good you stepped away. Even if it was only for a few days.”

Huesyth sighed. “Patients will sit where Franklyn died. I will sit where I almost died, and I will offer therapy,” Bedelia simply watched Huesyth, saying nothing. “It's easy to understand why you retired after you were attacked. Will you ever feel comfortable returning to psychiatric work?”

“This is psychiatric work,” Bedelia explained.

“One patient isn't a practice,” He averted his gaze before he came off as too pressuring for answers. “I can't help feeling responsible for what happened to Franklyn.”

“Every person has an intrinsic responsibility for their own life, Huesyth. No one else can take on that responsibility. Not even you.”

Huesyth returned his look to the woman. “Did you take responsibility when you were attacked by your patient?”

“Yes. But I don't take responsibility for his death.”

Huesyth leaned back in his seat, considering that answer for a moment before he met eyes with her. “Nor should you.”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NBC's Hannibal, nor its script and characters, and I don't make any money off of this fic. I rewrote it for me and a friend of mine purely for fun as a way to explore the events but with our original characters and just decided to start posting it.
> 
> New chapter every Wednesday!!


	9. “Trou Normand”

**GRAFTON, WEST VIRGINIA**

On an early morning, Bec met Jack at a beach, already downing two aspirins before he even had the agent in his sights. Jack for once said nothing as he led the empath across the chilly beach, still overcome with winter and snow. They approached a grotesquely shaped tower, erected out of the sand as a crazily artistic vertical display of human body parts. A  _ lot _ of human body parts. Dried dead faces marked it at random intervals, getting fresher and fresher as it reached the top. The headpiece was the freshest and was made from the brutalized body of a man very recently murdered.

Agents were circling the totem pole like flies to a dead animal. He was glad that it was cold because he knew the smell would have been awful.

“World's sickest jigsaw puzzle,” Brian grimaced as he snapped pictures of the bottom part of the totem. Skeletal, mummified corpses that were darkened with age and dirt.

“Yeah, but where are the corners?” Jimmy questioned, narrowing his eyes at it.

Brian raised an eyebrow at the other man. “What?”

Jimmy explained. “My mom always said to start a jigsaw with the corners.”

“Uh, the heads are the corners, I guess?”

“We’ve got too many corners,” Beverly cut in as she came to stand by them. “Seven graves but way too many heads.”

The empath circled the base of the totem, staring into the vacant, skeletal eye sockets of the few skulls there looking back at him.

Breaking the silence, Jack added from behind him. “The headpiece appears to be the only recent victim. The others are years, even decades, old. And we know that seven of the bodies were buried out here.”

He motioned around them to the discolored, empty graves surrounding the totem as Bec stared up at the recent victim.

“Whoever dug them up knew exactly where they were buried,” The empath said, a puff of white emerging from his mouth due to the cold.

The older agent mused. “I guess it wasn't enough for him to kill them once. He had to come back and defile his victims.”

“These graves weren't desecrated, Jack,” Bec said as he briefly met gazes with the agent. “They were exposed.”

They both looked to the top of the pole, at the dead-eyed man bent in half with his legs broken in place to look like protruding wings from the side of his head.

“Okay, everybody, let's go! Let's clear the scene!” Jack shouted to the investigators.

Knowing the drill by then, Katz, Price, and Zeller herded the local officers back and out of the way so that the empath could work. Bec stepped away from the totem as well, slipping his glasses off his face and tugging his beanie down more over his ears to keep the cold away. He exhaled deeply, then let his eyes slowly close.

The pendulum swung in his mind. The crime scene cleaned itself, the police presence wiped away and then the totem pole laid disassembled on the ground. Snow swirled around him as the empath opened his eyes again and approached the carnage.

“I planned this moment, this monument, with precision. Collected all my raw materials in advance.”

_ The killer moved among the rocks and bodies laid out in the snow, the oldest parts had dried skin and rags from their rotted clothing. With a grunt of effort, he moved a hunk of partially frozen torso onto its spike on the totem to hold it in place, binding it tightly with rope. _

“I position the bodies carefully, appointing each its rightful place. Peace in the pieces disassembled.”

_ As he began to tie on a frostbitten arm, his final victim laid bound and gagged in the snow. He struggled against his bonds and tried to shout through the gag shoved haphazardly into his mouth. _

“My latest victim I save for last. I want him to watch me work. I want him to know my design.”

_ The killer approached his final victim, kicking him straight onto his back so that he could kneel over him and plunge a knife into his chest. Joel stared back, terrified and wide-eyed until finally, the light faded. Blood seeped out into the sand and snow in a large ever growing puddle of red as the killer stood again. _

_ He looked up again from the front of the newly erected spire, the dead faces towering over him and the final victim’s fresh headpiece looking back at him. _

“This is my résumé. This is my body of work... This is my legacy.”

_ As he stared, a lone blood droplet landed on his cheek, causing him to flinch. He blinked _ only to reopen his eyes to find not the chill of the beach or the endless inky sea but warmly painted walls with arranged chairs. He furrowed his brow in confusion as he scanned over the wall that seemingly appeared out of nowhere in front of him when a door behind him opened.

“Bec?”

The empath glanced over his shoulder to find Huesyth at his office door.

The doctor cocked his head slightly. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

Bec just stared at the taller man in shock, he had no idea how to answer. Noticing his deer in the headlights look, Huesyth approached him with what seemed to be concern. “Are you alright?”

Bec narrowed his eyes slightly and Huesyth brought a hand up, running his thumb over Bec’s lip and bringing it back covered in blood.

He was let in a moment later before he could pass out in the waiting room. The empath paced the length of the office, clearly agitated as he yanked off his beanie and scarf. The latter of which was also covered in dark droplets of blood from his nose. He held Huesyth’s handkerchief to his face to clean off what he could and stop the flow of blood.

“I don't know how I got here,” Bec babbled aloud, clearly distressed by his sudden change of sceneries.

“Your car is outside, so we know you drove,” Huesyth replied. He was far calmer than the empath was as he slipped off his outer coat.

“Well, I was on a beach in Grafton, West Virginia. I blinked, and then I... I was waking up in your waiting room, except I wasn't asleep!”

“Grafton, West Virginia, is three-and-a-half hours from here,” The doctor pointed out. “You lost time.”

“Th... there is something wrong with me,” Bec stuttered in fear as he turned back to the taller man.

Even with the obviously stressed empath on the verge of a breakdown in his office, the doctor remained almost stoic. “You're dissociating, Bec. It's a desperate survival mechanism for a psyche that endures repeated abuse.”

“No, no, I'm not abused!” The empath snapped back at Huesyth.

“You have an empathy disorder. What you feel is overwhelming you.”

“I know, I know, I know-” “Yet you choose to ignore it. That's the abuse I'm referring to.”

“What, do you want me to quit?” Bec questioned.

“Well, Jack Crawford gave you a chance to quit, and you didn't take it,” The doctor reminded him. “Why?”

Bec hesitated slightly. “Um... I save lives.”

“And that feels good.”

He nodded a bit. “Generally speaking, yeah.”

“What about your life?” Huesyth questioned. “I'm your lover, Bec. I don't care about the lives you save. I care about  _ your _ life, and your life is separating from reality.”

Bec considered it and all but fumbled back to sit on the chaise longue as his legs felt like they were about to fall out from under him. It was difficult for him to admit, but he did. “I've been sleepwalking... experiencing hallucinations. Maybe I should get a brain scan.”

“ _ Bec _ , stop looking in the wrong corner for an answer to this.” The empath was briefly startled by Huesyth’s passionate concerns. “You were at the crime scene when you disassociated. Tell me about it.”

He thought back to the beach, covered in snow with deep, dark holes dug into the sand. Old graves and new ones. A spiral of grotesque humanoids going toward the Heavens. “It was a totem pole of bodies.”

“In some cultures, crimes and guilt are made manifest so that everyone can see them and their shame.”

“No, this isn't shame,” Bec retorted as he shook his head. “This was a celebration. He's marking his achievements and making them known.”

Huesyth’s face softened, approaching the empath again. “And faced with this killer's achievements, your mind needed to escape and you lost time.”

It sounded correct and it might have been exactly what happened. Bec nodded. “...Yes.”

The doctor gently cupped the younger man’s face and Bec couldn’t help but lean into the gentle touch. “I’m worried about you, Bec. You empathize so completely with the killers Jack Crawford has your mind wrapped around that you lose yourself to them. What if you lose time and hurt yourself or someone else? I don't want you to wake up and see a totem of your own making.”

Bec had nothing to say in response but held onto the offered lifeline of Huesyth’s hand.

 

Forcing himself to take in a steadying breath, Bec knocked at Jack’s office door, pausing briefly before entering. Jack looked up from the report he was reading. “Hey.”

Bec let the door fall closed behind him. “I'm sorry about yesterday.”

The older agent only glanced up at the empath for a second before returning to whatever he was writing. “Sorry about what?”

Bec was momentarily puzzled but covered it effectively. “I... I wasn't feeling like myself.”

It finally got Jack’s attention and he let the report lay flat on his desk. “Well, not feeling like yourself is kind of what you do, isn't it?”

“I suppose so,” Bec replied with a friendly chuckle. But he remembered the scarf he had on that was dotted in blood and wondered why Jack would assume he was okay with that. Was he not even paying attention when Bec left that beach bleeding? “So, I seemed fine to you?”

Looking up from his papers, Jack studied the other man. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

Bec quickly shook his head at the question. “Uh, no. No, no.”

His eyes narrowed slightly at the younger man, sensing his standoffish retreat. “Well, clearly there's something that you  _ don't _ want to tell me.”

The empath explained vaguely. “I... I guess I just got a little lost yesterday, is all.”

“And where are you today?” Jack asked.

“It got to me,” Bec said with another far weaker chuckle. “All those bodies got to me, and, uh, I thought it was a little more obvious than... than it was.”

Jack sighed softly. “If there's a problem, you need to tell me. Is there a problem, Bec?”

Pausing briefly, Bec smiled slightly before answering how he knew Jack would want him to answer. “Everything's fine.”

“All right.”

But Jack seemed to scrutinize the melancholy smile Bec had as he exited the office as quickly as he entered.

 

The lab was practically groaning under the weight of the totem pole bodies. Body parts and reassembled corpses were lined up on multiple tables as Bec entered. On a stand was a blown-up photo of the totem pole with tags pertaining to a few of the ID’s of the bodies. The trio of scientists were there and working hard to reassemble the jigsaw and name the remaining bodies.

Still shaken from his talk with Jack, Bec had to steady himself as he entered but he swallowed down the fear rising in his mind. “How many bodies?”

“We’ve counted seventeen in total,” Brian answered, sitting his clipboard aside.

“Meet our freshest one, Joel Summers,” Jimmy introduced as Brian pulled back the plastic sheet covering the now untwisted corpse of the headpiece. Bec could tell that his bones were severely broken. His body was a flourish of purple and black from the bruises of being positioned in such a way. “Forty years old, runs a cell phone store in Knoxville, Tennessee. Or did. He’s been missing for three days.”

“Single stab wound to the heart,” Brian explained, motioning with his gloved hands above the corpse’s chest. “Other injuries were post mortem... broken bones, dislocated hips, shoulders.”

“He was special to him somehow. He held a place of honor among the others,” Bec added.

Jimmy motioned around to some of the bodies around them. “Seven bodies were from the unmarked graves we found at the crime scene. Earth from the body parts matches the gravesites.”

“Blunt force trauma, stabbings, strangulations. Wrongful deaths,” Brian quipped.

Beverly added from the side. “There are at least eight other bodies that are recent grave robbings from all across West Virginia. No crimes attributed to any of them.  _ Accidental  _ deaths.”

It didn’t feel right. No matter what their death certificates say, that wasn’t the real truth. Bec simply shook his head at the woman. “They’re all murders.”

 

“Anthony Lamb, 28, fatal car wreck, 1986,” Bec explained to the class, flicking through images of the accident and the mangled car on the highway. “Francesca Bourdain, 42, suicide, pills, 1994. Adrian Packham, 60, massive coronary, 2001. Peter McGee, 25, carbon monoxide poisoning in his home, 2006.”

He finally got to the photo of the recently dug up graves at the totem pole crime scene. “And seven as-yet-unidentified bodies buried on a beach.”

Bec peered up at the rapt faces of the FBI trainees, some illuminated by their laptop screens as they listened and took notes. “Every death was different and was made to look like something else. No sadism, no torture. The method of these murders was less important to the killer than the simple fact... that these people die.”

The remote clicked again, showing the twisted body of the headpiece. “Joel Summers was killed with a single stab to the heart. Presented with great ostentation atop a display of all the previous victims. This killer's original design was to remain unnoticed, a ghost. That is what excited him. Until now. Why... is he coming out into the light?”

“Bec?” A woman’s voice interrupted his monologue. The empath’s eyes were immediately drawn to the door to see Alana standing in the entrance of the lecture hall. “I don't want to interrupt if you're rehearsing, or…”

Confused, the empath looked again to find himself alone in the room. No pictures on the screen, no students taking notes. “Uh…” He started, realizing with growing dread that he must’ve been hallucinating the whole thing but tried to cover his disorientation. “N... no, no, no. It's okay.”

Alana entered, searching around the dark space like she was looking for the same missing students. “Very moody in here.”

“Uh... well, that's me,” They shared a chuckle but he could tell the tension was potent. “Come on in. I promise I won't try to kiss you again.”

She approached more, still keeping a distance between them. “A doctor who treats herself has a fool for a patient. I regretted leaving your house the other night.”

“I think leaving was probably the best thing you could’ve done. For _ both _ of us.”

Alana seemed taken aback by the forwardness. “You think so?”

“I think we both needed time to think about it and, you know, set ourselves straight.”

“I-I don't want to mislead you, but I don't want to lie to you either.”

“I won’t lie if you don’t,” Bec retorted with a nod.

Alana paused but sighed. “I don’t think I have feelings for you, Bec, and I can't just have an affair with you. It would be... reckless.”

“Alana, I’m in a relationship,” Bec finally cut in. “The date I told you I was on was with that… guy. I’m not gonna let this one kiss throw us off or anything. Or let it inhibit either of our work. It’s fine. I understand.”

Relieved, Alana’s shoulders seemed to relax but the empath followed it up, rather bitterly, with. “And it is not because you have a professional curiosity about me."

“No,” Alana stated without missing a beat. “It's because I think you're unstable.”

A deafening silence passed between them but Bec didn’t feel as he probably should’ve been because she said what he had been thinking. Any other person would have been offended, he should have objected and said he was perfectly fine like he did with Jack. But any argument he had died on his lips before they could be said.

So instead, he thanked. “Thank you for not lying.”

“Do you feel unstable?” Alana asked gently.

He stared at her a moment, then slowly nodded. Without another word, Alana crossed the empty space to him, putting her arms around him and held him tight. Bec allowed himself to be held in the warm embrace, one so unlike Huesyth’s.

But one that was so welcome.

 

“I'm trying to be understated when I say that this is a bad idea,” Bec reiterated from where he was standing in front of the common room windows, surrounded by the potted plant life they kept in the sunlight.

Bec slid his glasses off his face as Huesyth backed him up on the idea. “Freddie Lounds is dangerous.”

Abigail was unwavering, however, as she fiddled with the board game pieces on the table she was sitting at. In the ways of activities, they didn’t have much else to do there. “She said she wanted me to write about you guys in the book.”

The doctor looked back over his shoulder at the empath for a brief second before returning his eyes to the Hobbs girl. “You would be forfeiting your privacy and ours.”

“This... this... well, all of this will change. Whatever you're feeling now, that won't last. Things change,” The empath tried to console, stepping closer to the table the young girl was sat at. “Things are changing for me too. I'm doing some accounting of what's important in my life and what isn't.  _ You _ are important, Abigail.”

“Just because you killed my dad doesn't mean you get to be him,” Abigail retorted angrily.

He should’ve expected the snap back but it still stung. Huesyth could see him struggle with it and stepped in again. “We've been through a traumatic event, and no one more traumatized than you, Abigail. But we went through it together. What you write, you write about all of us.”

“I don’t need your permission,” The girl added in a huff, standing from her chair and crossing her arms over her chest.

Huesyth explained. “And you don't need our approval, but I hope it would mean something.”

Abigail considered the words and her defiance softened, her arms uncrossing again. “I know what people think I did. But they're wrong. Why can't I just tell everybody that they're wrong?”

“You have  _ nothing _ to apologize for,” The empath reminded.

“ _ Yet, _ ” Huesyth added as he stepped up to Bec’s side. The girl glanced over at the doctor. “But if you open this door, Abigail, you won't control what comes through it. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

She held his gaze briefly, far less capable of keeping her emotions in check as Huesyth was.

 

The next day, the board of bodies that the scientists were building was now mostly completed. More names and details of the totem poles victims were written alongside the image of the pole itself. The three scientists seemed exhausted from their work but were still there when Bec came again to make his assessment.

“The display was built in Grafton for a reason,” Bec said as he scanned over the images. “Totem poles commemorate special events. They tell the story of a life. If Joel Summers is his finale, then this lowest body on the pole will be our killer's beginning. His first.”

“Fletcher Marshall,” Beverly said from behind him. “Murdered in 1973. Beaten to death right in Grafton. His grave was robbed five days ago.”

Bec pauses a moment to take that in before asking over his shoulder. “No one convicted of killing him?”

“Not yet,” Jimmy replied.

Bec shrugged slightly. “So our guy got away with it forty years ago.”

“So he kept on going,” Brian commented.

“There will be a connection between Joel Summers and Fletcher Marshall,” Bec said, pointing to both of the mentioned victims on the totem.

“Bec,” A voice calls and the empath looked over to the opened glass doors of the lab to see Jack waiting for him. “I need you in my office.”

The older agent walked off, expectantly waiting for Bec to follow after him and he did after giving the others one last look. He waited in the office with Jack until Alana and Huesyth entered the room as well, then the older agent immediately said.

“Nicholas Boyle turned up in Minnesota... dead. His body was found in the woods. He was frozen. They thawed him out fairly quickly, but they said they can't tell if he died a week ago, six weeks ago, or the night that he disappeared.”

They all had looks of shock on their faces, Alana being the first to speak up. “How did he die?”

“Knife wound. He was gutted,” Jack answered. Little did any of them know that Huesyth’s senses were on high alert then. “I've had the body flown down here. I want Abigail Hobbs to identify it for us.”

“You already have a positive ID,” Huesyth countered.

“Not from Abigail Hobbs.”

“You can't put her in a room with Nick Boyle's body,” Alana retorted. “She already has nightmares about him, Jack.”

The older agent pressed. “I'm curious about why.”

“You can't think that she has something to do with this?” Bec finally cut in.

“I think Abigail Hobbs is the common denominator between her father, Marissa Schuur, and Nicholas Boyle. They all go back to Abigail. My instincts tell me that Abigail has answers that we have not heard.”

The empath snapped back. “What are the questions, Jack?”

“Let's start with where she goes when she climbs the walls of the psychiatric facility,” Jack shot back. “Maybe she was meeting Nicholas Boyle. None of us know what was really going on between them.”

“I want to go on record as saying that this is a very bad idea,” Alana seethed before looking up at the taller doctor by her side. “Huesyth?”

“Jack has the look of a man with no interest in any opinion but his own,” Huesyth answered quickly.

The older agent was undeterred by the three ganging up on him, turning her attention back to the other doctor. “I want you to observe on this, Alana.”

Bec cut in. “If you're putting Abigail in a room with the body, I want to be there.”

“I'm sorry, Bec. I am not confident with your ability to be objective about Abigail Hobbs right now,” Jack explained as he rounded his desk to almost get in Bec’s face as he moved to his office door. “Alana.”

Jack exited with Alana close behind him, leaving the other two alone on the office. Huesyth hadn’t yet looked the empath’s way but Bec was still fuming. “He could do Abigail irreparable damage exposing her to this.”

“Perhaps she's stronger than we think,” Huesyth replied and he hoped she was. He had the most to lose if she turned out not to be strong.

 

After being told the Hobbs girl had returned from her impromptu interrogation with Jack and Alana, the doctor couldn’t keep himself from having an interrogation of his own in fear of also being discovered.

Huesyth stared out the frosted window of Abigail’s hospital room, quietly seething below the facade. “It can be a comfort to see the broken, bloated corpse of a monster and know it can never come back.”

A moment's pause before Abigail replied. “Nick Boyle wasn't a monster.”

The doctor finally turned to meet eyes with her across the room. “Were you?”

Abigail took a step forwards. “I sometimes feel like one.”

“Is that why you uncovered his body?” Her face grew still and she averted her eyes from him but Huesyth continued. “Would this be a chapter in your book, Abigail?”

“No,” She answered quickly. “Neither would killing Nick or _ you _ helping me hide the body.”

Huesyth reminded the girl as he shrugged and moved away from the window. “There's always an addendum.”

“The FBI already asked their questions. I answered them. I passed.”

“With Jack Crawford's attention,” Huesyth added.

“You're right,” Abigail huffed. “I opened the door. I can't control what comes through it, but this time I could control  _ when. _ I'm not afraid of them finding Nicholas Boyle anymore. He's been found.”

“You betrayed my trust. You jeopardized my life as well as your own. I deserve more than that,” She shied away from his gaze again and he slowly stalked closer to her. “I need to trust you, Abigail. What if I can't?”

The barely concealed threat in the room was huge, and the air seemed soured by his anger. Abigail looked up at him again. A silent plea for her own life.

 

Pulling back the plastic sheet on the final victim again, Beverly excitedly disclosed to Jack and Bec. “Joel Summers, the headpiece of our totem pole, was adopted after his parents died. Guess who dad was?”

“Fletcher Marshall,” Bec answered. “Joel Summers is Joel Marshall.”

“Uh, we did a DNA comparison between Fletcher Marshall and Joel Summers,” Jimmy added, handing a file to Bec over the body. “No match.”

Bec raised a brow at the report. “So Marshall's son  _ wasn't _ his son?”

“The mom, Eleanor, was killed in a car accident four years after Fletcher was killed,” Brian explained.

“Was it a genuine car accident?” Jack asked.

Beverly motioned to Joel’s body. “If she was murdered, she would have been on the totem pole.”

“Well, unless he loved her too much to disgrace her that way,” Bec advised.

The older agent questioned. “Was anyone ever convicted for Marshall's murder?”

“There was a man named Laurence Wells who was questioned twice in 1973. He was never charged and still lives in Grafton,” Beverly revealed.

The empath looked up from the report he was reading over. “Fletcher Marshall was a crime of passion. It had something that none of the other murders had.”

“A motive,” Jack stated.

 

They wasted no time in their drive back to Grafton but as Jack and Bec approached the home of Laurence Wells they noticed the door already cracked open, despite the chill in the air. The older agent knocked anyway and a voice from inside the home immediately answered. “It's open. Come in.”

Jack looked back at the empath briefly before pushing the door open. The inside of the home was almost vacant with some boxes stacked up behind an aging man sat in a reclining leather chair. Laurence raised arms in a mock surrender from the chair. “I'm unarmed.”

Politely, Jack removed his hat as they entered the living room. “So you were expecting us.”

Laurence rested his hands back on his legs. “I had faith you'd find me.”

“And why is that, Mr. Wells?” Bec asked.

“Because I let you,” The older man replied, almost bitterly. “That last one was... let's just say it's a good thing it was the last one. I don't have the fight in me anymore.”

“Are you confessing to the murder of Joel Summers?” Jack asked.

Laurence chuckled fondly and looked up at the agent. “And Fletcher Marshall... And fifteen others. I assume you've counted 'em up by now.”

“So you killed Joel Summers just so you'd be caught,” Bec guessed.

“Not just. I killed Joel Summers because he was  _ never  _ meant to be.”

Not dwelling on the cryptic nature of the answer, Jack continued questioning. “What reason did you have to kill the others?”

“I had every reason to kill the others. They just had no reason to die. They never saw me coming unless I wanted them to see me coming,” Laurence expressed, his voice was dry and gravelly with age. “I could wave at a lady and smile, chew the fat with her in church, knowing I killed her husband. There is something beautiful about that ball of silence at a funeral, all those people around you,  _ knowing _ that you made it happen.” The man ended by giving a thin-lipped smile up at the arresting agent.

Jack seemed noticeably disturbed. “Now there's something beautiful about knowing that you'll spend the rest of your life in prison.”

Laurence nodded in understanding but he cocked a bushy eyebrow at Jack. “Do I look wealthy to you? Prison is gonna be a luxury next to the kind of retirement home I can afford. And I certainly won't be forgotten there. I'm securing my... I'm securing my legacy.”

“That's one way to be remembered,” Bec added. “No children to tell your story. Did Joel Summers remember his father?”

“Not anymore,” The killer answered.

“Did you have an affair with Eleanor Marshall before you murdered her?” Jack asked. Without a word, Laurence leaned back in his chair. “From your silence, I'm gonna take that as a yes.”

“He was your son. Joel Summers,” Bec snapped at the man.

Laurance narrowed his eyes at the empath. “What?”

Bec came to stand in front of him, hissing in the older man’s face. “You thought the woman you loved was having Fletcher Marshall's baby when she should've been having yours, but you got it the wrong way around. Eleanor chose to raise him as Fletcher Marshall's child rather than yours, so maybe... she saw what's in your heart.”

The empath had to step back again to collect himself, a raging frustration roiling in his mind.

“You didn't secure your legacy, Mr. Wells, you murdered it,” Jack explained simply.

Bec snapped harshly. “In fact, your one act as a father was to  _ destroy _ your son.”

Laurence Wells sat there in silence, the truth of this reality hitting him hard.

 

They arrested Laurence Wells. They knew well enough that with the man’s health he wouldn’t last very long with the prison systems medical care but it was out of their hands now. Bec went home still angry about it all but when night descended, he fell into a fitful sleep. He heard Abigail’s voice echoing in his head though. Talk of the fear of nightmares and he felt the strong tail of the snake close around his throat again before his eyes shot open. He stared at his ceiling, held his own throat to ensure there wasn’t a tourniquet around it, and rolled onto his side to stare at the far wall.

But when morning came and he opened his eyes again and found himself dressed and standing at the foot of the metal display table that held Nicholas Boyle’s corpse. 

It was rotted from decomposition but still mostly intact from the cold. The corpse rose to sit up straight and swung his legs off the side of the slab. But when his feet hit the floor, he was fully dressed with no signs of the lesions and decomposition that ravaged his body. Nicholas stood face to face with Bec, taking a step forward before the empath plunged a knife into the man’s gut. He looked agonized but when Bec looked up again he was staring into Abigail’s eyes. They were wide as saucers and brimming with fear as she plunged the knife into his stomach.

Reality rushed back to him, he awakened again to find himself standing at the foot of Nicholas’s slab at the BAU with a line of blood dripping over his lips.

 

For once, Bec didn’t bother with politeness when he arrived at Huesyth’s office, letting himself in and finding the doctor alone at his desk, sketching on a paper in front of him.

Huesyth looked up, greeting him warmly. “Hello, my dear.”

The empath stayed quiet for a moment, still processing the information that he had learned as he let the office door fall shut behind him. “Abigail Hobbs killed Nick Boyle.”

He could visibly see the warmth drain from the doctor’s face but Huesyth also said nothing, holding Bec’s gaze. He sighed. “Yes, I know.”

Numbly, Bec nodded in understanding. “Tell me why you know.”

“I helped her dispose of the body.”

Bec moved forward cautiously towards the doctor but still kept a safe distance from him. As if he was ready to be attacked. “Evidently... not well enough.”

“Have you told Jack Crawford?” Huesyth asked.

Despite himself wanting to lie, the empath slowly shook his head. “No.”

There was a flash of real confusion across Huesyth’s face. “Why not?”

“Because I was hoping it wasn't true.”

Huesyth broke eye contact, playing briefly with the handle of the scalpel on his desk before abandoning it altogether and standing. “Well... now you know the truth.”

“Do I?”

“Everything you know about that night is true. Except for the end,” Huesyth defended. “Nicholas Boyle attacked us. Abigail's only crime was to defend herself and I lied about it.”

“ _ Why? _ ” The empath questioned.

The doctor scoffed softly as if it was obvious. “You know why. Because Jack Crawford would hang her for what her father's done, and the world would burn Abigail in his place. That would be the story. That would be what Freddie Lounds writes.” Bec turned his back on the doctor as he spoke, barely looking over his shoulder at the other man as he made his way to the window. “Abigail is no more a killer than you are for shooting her father or I am for the death of Tobias Budge.”

“It isn't our place to decide,” Bec chided firmly.

“If not ours, then whose?” Huesyth shot back as he moved to Bec’s side. “Who knows Abigail better than you and I? Or the burden she bears? We are her fathers now. We have to serve her better than Garret Jacob Hobbs did.”

Huesyth pulled back as if he was going to move away but hesitated in his steps. “If you go to Jack, then you murder Abigail's future,” Another pause and Huesyth was growing worried. “Do I need to call my lawyer, Bec?”

Bec looked up at the other man and a long beat passed between them before he finally shook his head.

“We can tell no one,” Huesyth continued, moving closer to wrap a protective arm around the empath’s lower back. “What we are doing here is the right thing. In time, this will be the only story any of us cares to tell.”

 

“I feel terrible, Ms. Lounds,” Huesyth apologized again. Returning to his table and placing a plate of salad in front of the red-headed woman. Abigail was seated to Freddie’s left and Bec was directly across from the journalist. “Never entered my head you might be a vegetarian. A lapse on my behalf.”

Huesyth sat back down at his seat at the head of the table and Freddie quipped. “Research always delivers benefits.”

“If it contradicts a good story, hell, publish it anyway?” Bec muttered to himself.

The doctor could tell that Bec still had residual regret from the revelation the night before. That partnered with his disdain for Freddie left the empath with a foul mood that was only lightened by his want to protect Abigail.

“Are you still angry I called you insane?” Freddie jested, taking a bite of her salad. “The libel laws are clear, Mr. Reyes.”

Huesyth peered over at the redhead as Bec continued. “Insinuation is such a grey area.”

“Insane isn't really black or white, is it?” Freddie pointed out. “We're all pathological in our own ways.”

“You choose the version of the truth that suits you best and pursue it pathologically.”

“Everybody decides their own versions of the truth,” Freddie explained, she cast a glance towards Abigail. “I'm here because I want to tell Abigail's version of the truth.”

The Hobbs girl smiled shyly at the woman by her side as she’d been staying out of the argument, eating with her head down.

Bec thought over her words, looking between the two women before he advised. “See that you do.”

“I don't have anything to hide,” Abigail reminded.

Freddie hummed softly. “Everyone has something to hide, but I won't tell anything you don't want me to.”

Bec matched eyes with Abigail across the table, biting his tongue to keep quiet and allowing Huesyth to pipe in. “You must understand our concerns. We care about Abigail. Our only thought is to protect her.”

The empath couldn’t help but look between Huesyth and Abigail as most of their attention was on Freddie. He couldn’t imagine either of them capable of murder and conspiracy or he  _ could _ imagine it and just never wanted to.

“Hm. She's already exposed,” Freddie stressed, leaning forward to the doctor. “Her silence until now has been taken as guilt. This book is about her innocence. I want Abigail to have a future.”

“That's what we all want,” Bec said, sipping his wine.

“Well, we all want what's best for Abigail,” Huesyth smiled at them.

They were allowed another beat of silence before Freddie cut in again. “This is possibly the finest salad I've ever eaten in my life. Shame to ruin it with all that meat.”

 

When the other guests took their leave, Huesyth collected the dirty dishes for washing and allowed Abigail to stay behind to help. She dried the wine glasses in silence before she finally sighed.

“Bec knows, doesn't he?” She asked with a soft sniffle.

Huesyth turned to the girl, completing his wiping down of the last plate. “He knows you killed Nicholas Boyle, yes.”

Abigail took in an unsteady breath. “What am I gonna do?”

“He will keep our secret,” Huesyth replied, surely.

Wracked with fear, Abigail muttered. “You don't know that.”

“He will keep it because otherwise the one good thing in his life is tainted. And he will lie to Jack Crawford about you just as he has lied to himself,” Huesyth explained clearly, folding the drying towel he’d been using. “You're free, Abigail. No one will know what you did.”

The doctor finally turned to her, going to stand by her side. Abigail put down the glass she was holding to avoid dropping it, shuddering silently as if all the tension and adrenaline keeping her going had finally left.

“And no one will know the truth you're trying to avoid. The one you cannot admit even to yourself.”

Abigail muttered something softly, but it was indistinguishable through the tears sliding down her cheeks.

Huesyth said. “I can’t hear you-”

_ “I helped him _ ,” She cut him off. The pent up self-loathing and fear finally coming through in waves. “I knew what my father was. I knew what he did. I... I knew. I was the one who... met the girls, talked to them. Laughed and joked. Found out where they lived, where they were going, when they'd be alone. Girls that looked just like me. They could have been my friends. I couldn't say no to him. I knew... I knew it was them or me.”

She looked to Huesyth, pleading, raw, and broken, and he held her against his chest, stroking her hair soothingly as she sobbed in his arms. “I wondered when you would tell me.”

“I’m a monster,” Abigail proclaimed softly through her tears.

“No. I know what monsters are. You're a victim. And Bec and I... we're going to protect you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NBC's Hannibal, nor its script and characters, and I don't make any money off of this fic. I rewrote it for me and a friend of mine purely for fun as a way to explore the events but with our original characters and just decided to start posting it.
> 
> New chapter every Wednesday!!


	10. "Buffet Froid"

“I can feel my nerves clicking like, uh, roller coaster cogs pulling up to the inevitable long plunge,” Bec described to the doctor sitting across from him.

Listening to the empath’s grim description, Huesyth replied. “Quick sounds. Quickly ended.”

The younger man took in a deep breath as if to calm himself. “Abigail Hobbs _ended_ Nicholas Boyle like a burst balloon.” Bec averted his eyes briefly as the image of that knife being shoved into Nicholas’ abdomen flashed through his mind. A quick death that was quickly ended. “She took a life.”

“You've taken a life,” The doctor reminded.

“Yeah,” The empath agreed softly, nodding his head. “Yeah, so have you.”

“You're grieving, Bec. Not for the life you have taken, but for the life that was taken from you. If Abigail could have started over, left the horror of her father behind, so could have you. You could untangle yourself from the madness and the murder.”

It didn’t settle the moral fight in his mind. He still had no idea if he made the right choice when he agreed to carry on the lie for Abigail and Huesyth but he gave an unsteady exhale. “We lied for her.”

“We both know the unreality of taking a life,” Huesyth said, leaning forward in his chair. “The people who die when we have no other choice, we know in those moments they are not flesh, but light and air and color.”

He furrowed his brow at the taller man. “Isn't that what it is to be alive?”

“Do you feel alive, Bec?”

The empath stared at the wall behind the doctor instead of making eye contact. “I... I feel like I'm fading.”

“Have you experienced any further loss of time or hallucinations?”

A slow, quiet nod from the empath.

“I'd like you to draw a clock face,” Huesyth proclaimed, rising from his chair to grab a pen and notepad from his desk. “Numbered. Small hand indicating the hour, large hand the minute.”

“Why?” Bec asked confusedly.

“An exercise,” The doctor said simply, handing the procured items over to the younger man and returning to his seat. “I want you to focus on the present moment. The now. Often as you can, think of where you are, and when. Think of who you are.”

The empath felt like a child with his doodles but he did as Huesyth asks and quickly drew a circle on the page, the twelve numbers and the indicating clock hands while muttering to himself. “It’s 7:16 PM. I'm in Baltimore, Maryland. And my name is Bec Reyes.”

“A simple reminder,” Huesyth offered. “The handle to reality for you to hold on to. And know you're alive.”

Bec placed the pen in the spine of the notebook and handed it over to the doctor. It was a circle with all of the numbers and hands stacked on one side. The other side of the circle was left completely empty. As Huesyth examined what Bec had drawn, he had finally come to terms with the fact that there was something deeply wrong with Bec.

 

The chill in the air nipped at his face but after the hours spent in the freezing waters of the river near his house, Bec’s face had become nearly numb to it. He finally made his way in through the back door of his house, leaving the chain of hooks carrying the fish he had caught on the kitchen counter as he peeled off his extra layers.

Returning to the kitchen, he unhooked one of the trouts from the chain and laid it flat on his counter. Taking up his knife and splitting it from the base to gills. As fish blood seeped out from the single stroke, it quickly bloomed into an enormous puddle that enveloped most of the countertop. He stared into the reflection of himself that the dark sheet of blood projected back at him until he felt the cold, scaly skin of the fish seemed to disappear.

Instead, he was staring into the face of a young girl, gagging and spewing up the blood drowning her lungs from the carved open Glasgow smile on her face. She reached up, grabbing hold of his arm that held the knife over her face before finally going still beneath him.

Where is he? Did he do that?

Horror and confusion twisted his face as he stared at her, blood running down her mangled face.

Was it possible? Could he have killed that woman in some sort of trance?

Horrified, Bec stumbled away from the body and he could feel warm liquid gushing over his face. He was falling into shock, breathing going shallow and quick. The blood. The body. The knife. What had he done? Overwhelmed, he turned and moved quickly for the door, slipping on the blood from the girl and tossing the knife away from him.

He wrenched the door open, panting and hyperventilating, covered in blood from his hands to wrists and with blood gushing from both nostrils to cover the front of his vest. And he nearly ran directly into Jack and the three scientists where they were waiting for him in the hallway.

They all stared at Bec in shock, taken aback by his appearance, and Beverly looked him up and down before asking. “Bec?”

He couldn’t answer. His words sticking in his throat like the blood that drowned the dead girl behind him. All he could do was lean back against the doorframe and try to keep himself from crying as blood trickled from his face.

 

The water in the sink of the downstairs kitchen was freezing cold but all he could care about was the drying, rotted blood staining his hands. Bec would’ve tried to clean the blood from his face first but he didn’t want to have the dead girl’s anywhere near him anymore. He scrubbed at his skin until it turned red but he knew he wasn’t going to be able to get it out from under his nails.

Bec could feel the uncomfortable gaze of Jack lingering on him from behind but the older agent said nothing. Finally, Jack took a calming breath before stepping outside through the backdoor. A silent demand to follow when Bec was ready. The empath sighed softly, running the water over his face and using one of the hand towels to dry himself off and scrub off more of the dried flecks. He finally followed after the older agent, stripping off the blood-soaked vest and instead he wrapped himself in his heavy coat. He found Jack staring off into the open fields surrounding the modest farmhouse, snow falling lightly around him.

Turning to the empath and pointing at him, Jack asked. “What happened in there?”

Bec knew he must have looked awful, more like a corpse that stood up and walked around. His face was ashen from blood loss, dark rings under his eyes from the constant nightmares, and his skin rubbed raw from the repetitive scrubbing to clean off the blood. All the more reason to not look Jack in the eye when he meekly replied. “I got confused.”

But Jack shook his head, obviously not buying the excuse. “I've seen you confused and I've seen you upset, but I've never seen you afraid like this.”

“Well, I'm an old hand at fear. I can manage this one. I just got disoriented. I can go back in,” Bec said, even looking over his shoulder back at the door.

“I saw the look on your face when you came out of that room,” Jack snapped, making Bec halt in his movements. “Now, what did you experience in there that's got you mute all of a sudden?”

“I can see and hear better when I’m afraid. I-I just can't... speak as concisely.”

“Bec, you _contaminated_ the crime scene. You've never done that before.”

His head was pounding and he couldn’t find it in him to argue anymore. “I thought I was responsible for it.”

He could see Jack narrow his eyes in his peripheral vision. “What are you saying? You thought that you killed that woman in there?”

“Sometimes with, uh, what I do-” But Jack cut in him off. “What you do is you take all of the evidence available at a crime scene. You extrapolate. You reconstruct the _thinking_ of a killer. You don't think of yourself as the killer.”

“I got lost in the reconstruction. Just for a second. Just a blink,” Bec said firmly.

“I know you don't like to be the cause for concern, but I am officially concerned about you.”

“ _Officially,_ ” Bec repeated with a sneer.

“Yes, that’s right.”

Bec hummed slightly, stepping down from the porch steps so that he was level with Jack. “I thought the reason you had me seeing Huesyth and not an FBI psychiatrist is so my mental well-being stays... unofficial.”

The empath could tell the truth of the statement stung Jack more than anticipated. “I just want to be careful with you. We don't want to break you here. Is that what's happening? Have I broken you?”

“Do you have anyone that does this better unbroken than I do broken?”

Jack eyed Bec cautiously. “Fear makes you rude, Bec.”

The older agent stepped away, barely taking his gaze off the empath until he had to. Despite what every nerve in his body was telling him, Bec returned to the upstairs crime scene where the scientists were working.

Brian saw him enter as he snapped pictures and said exactly what Bec already knew. “She drowned on her own blood.”

“And what she didn't drown on is all over the floor and under the bed. She was trying to hide from him,” Jimmy added.

“He dragged her there. He was waiting for her under the bed,” Bec said, pointing to the bed.

Beverly plucked a broken nail from the deep scratches curved into the wooden floorboards. “She fought to claw her way out.”

Bec looked over at the framed photos scattered on the dresser top, every glass sheet was smashed open. Every face pictured, torn and damaged beyond recognition. “He knew her. Someone who cared about her or thought he did.”

“He cared too much,” Beverly commented, looking around at the blood-spattered room with an uneasy expression.

Suddenly, Jack cut in, causing Bec to flinch slightly as he never really heard when he actually entered the room. “So, we're looking for boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, coworkers, the guy who bags her groceries.”

Jimmy dusted the knife for prints, observing it under his light. “I've got a clean set of prints on the knife handle.” That should’ve been exciting but he peered up from his work to address Bec. “I assume they're yours.”

“Sorry,” Bec mumbled an apology.

Jimmy gave a dismissive nod and continued. “There's other dermal tissue, presumably from the killer, but the skin is so diseased or damaged it didn't leave any useful prints.”

Beverly shined her flashlight onto the victim’s hands in search of the missing nail. “The victim scratched her killer deep enough to pile tissue under the fingernails, but never drew blood.”

“Why didn't he bleed?” Jack asked.

“The killer might’ve not bled but Bec definitely did,” Brian explained. “He bled directly into the face wounds.”

Bec couldn’t bring himself to give another meaningful apology and instead, Jack gave Brian a look to move on. “After he cut up the victim's face it looks like he was trying to pull her skin back.”

Bec looked down at the horror of the woman with the jagged, cruel mouth. “Like he was removing a mask?”

 

“I still have the... coppery smell of blood on my hands. I can't remember seeing the crime scene before I saw myself killing her,” Bec said with an unsteady shake to his voice as he paced around the office. He wrung his hands nervously in front of himself as if he was just itching to scratch off his own skin.

Huesyth regarded him with concern from where he was sitting against the front of his desk. The empath wasn’t wrong about the blood as Huesyth could smell it the second the younger man walked into the room. The scent seemed to have soaked into the fabric of his clothes. One part the doctor could identify as Bec’s own blood and another that seemed slightly older. Rotting and aged already.

“Those memories sank out of sight, yet you're aware of their absence,” Huesyth addressed.

Bec was very clearly haunted from his false memories of the murder but he motioned to Huesyth. “There's a grandiosity to the violence that I imagined that feels more real than what I know is true.”

“What do you know to be true?” Huesyth asked, cocking his head slightly.

“I know I didn't kill her,” Bec replied quickly. “I couldn't have. But I remember _cutting_ into her. I remember watching her die.”

“No, Bec, you remember the true killer doing these things,” Huesyth firmly denied. “You must overcome these delusions that are disguising your reality. What kind of savage delusions does this killer have?”

“It wasn't savage,” Bec countered with a shake of his head, leaning back against the ladder that led to the second level when the lightheadedness overtook him. The effects of the blood loss were still lingering in him. “It was lonely. It was desperate... _Sad._ I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I looked right through me, past me, as if I was a... was just a stranger.”

Finally, Huesyth pushed off the desk to move in front of the younger man. It caused Bec to immediately stand up straighter against the ladder as the doctor approached him. “You have to honestly confront your limitations with what you do and how it affects you.”

The taller man now could see stains of dark blood speckling the collar and chest of the blue henley shirt his lover was wearing. Due to the state of his appearance, that blood was more likely from one of Bec’s nose bleeds.

Frustrated, with himself or with everything around him, Bec sighed loudly. “If by limitations you mean the difference between sanity and insanity, I don't accept that.”

“What do you accept?” Huesyth questioned.

“I know what kind of crazy I am and this isn't that kind of crazy,” Bec demanded. “This could be... seizures. This could be a tumor. A... a blood clot.”

Huesyth gave the empath a sympathetic look before leaning down to nuzzle their noses together and the younger man sighed. The tension seemed to leave his shoulders slightly as he allowed himself to absorb the affection Huesyth was giving. The scent of stale blood was almost overpowering when they were that close.

“I can recommend a neurologist,” Huesyth offered gently. “But if it isn't physiological, then you have to accept what you're struggling with is mental illness.”

Hesitantly, the empath nodded and Huesyth finally pulled away.

 

**NOBLE HILLS HEALTH CARE CENTER**

**BALTIMORE, MARYLAND**

The next morning was interrupted by Huesyth taking him to the appointment he promised him. Bec couldn’t help the stress bubbling inside him the closer they got to the hospital though and kept his hand wrapped firmly around Huesyth’s until they got into the hospital itself.

“You're in very good hands,” Dr. Sutcliffe approved with a bright-toothed smile. He seemed to be a rather vain man in his early forties who’d treat you rudely if he didn’t respect you. But he gave Huesyth the utmost professional courtesy as he led them into his office. “Dr. Cavalli here is one of the sanest men I know.”

“I would agree,” Huesyth responded as he removed his outer coat. “Dr. Sutcliffe and I were residents together at Hopkins.”

“Another life ago. Back when you weren't afraid to get your hands a little dirty,” Sutcliffe teased, taking his seat behind his desk.

“I was always drawn to how the mind works. I found it much more dynamic than how the brain works,” The taller man explained, finally sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk and the empath followed his lead.

“The projected image is more interesting than the projector, until, of course, the projector breaks down,” Sutcliffe commented before turning his attention to the empath that hadn’t spoken once through a portion of the conversation. “So, Bec, these headaches. When did they begin in earnest?”

“Two to three months ago,” Bec said.

“About the time Bec went back into the field, which is when I met him,” Huesyth explained further.

Sutcliffe nodded in understanding. “And the hallucinations?”

Bec blinked, brow furrowing. “I can't really say when they started. Um... I just slowly became aware that I might not be dreaming.”

The doctor’s in the room regarded Bec curiously, Sutcliffe matching eyes with Huesyth.

 

The nurse handed Bec a pair of earplugs as he slid back onto the sliding tray of the MRI tube. Laying back onto the tray and resting his head into the offered cushion in a tense, almost board like fashion, the scratchy, blue hospital gown he had to wear doing nothing to make him feel any less exposed.

Huesyth kept his watchful eyes on the proceedings from behind the protective glass with Sutcliffe as the nurse finished her duties with the machine.

“It's encephalitis. That's your pre-diagnosis?” Sutcliffe parroted.

Without taking his eyes off the empath, Huesyth responded. “Yes.”

“Based on?” Sutcliffe asked, sliding the report he was reading onto the desk in front of him.

“I could smell it.”

Sutcliffe stared at the side of Huesyth’s head in disbelief. “So your sense of smell has gone from calling out a nurse's perfume to diagnosing an autoimmune disease.”

“He started sleepwalking and I noticed a very specific scent,” The taller man explained, moving to stand closer to Sutcliffe’s side.

“And what exactly does encephalitis smell like?” Sutcliffe asked.

“It has heat. A fevered sweetness.” _Fire_ , he remembered. _A not yet raging fire being cradled into something destructive._

“If you suspected, why didn't you say something?”

“I had to be sure. Symptoms began slowly and gradually worsened. And yesterday, I asked him to draw a clock.” Huesyth reached into his coat, slipping out his notebook and flipping to the bookmarked page. “This is what he drew.”

Sutcliffe returned his glasses to his face to observe the askew clock scribbled onto the page. “Oh. Spatial neglect. Headaches, disorientation, hallucinations, altered consciousness. It's all the telltale signs.”

He handed the notebook back to Huesyth as the taller man continued. “It is so rare to be able to study the psychological effect of this type of malady on a person's mind.”

“It's rarer still to be able to study the _neurological_ effects.”

“A doctor has to weigh the ultimate benefit of the scientific study,” Huesyth added. “Even in these times, we know so little about the brain. There are great discoveries to be made.”

On the other side of the glass, the table Bec was lying on slid slowly back into the bright white tube, a facial scanner of red lights lining up symmetrically with his face.

_The killer slid under Beth’s bed, waiting for her to return to the room again. Staring at the aging wood beams lining the underside of the bed frame-_

Bec blinked as the MRI machine began making a loud, disconcerting whir into the empath’s ears as the scans began. He turned his head to the side _and the killer stared at the methodical dripping of the leaking roof as it left pools in the middle of the victim’s room. Drip-drip-drip. A flashlight flickered on as Beth’s pajama-clad legs entered the killer’s line of sight. She turned away from him, addressing the still dripping ceiling as the killer reached out and grabbed a hold of Beth’s ankle. He yanked her to the floor and her screams filled his ears_ as the machine continued its incessant whirring.

 _The killer looked again to his side again and saw the victim lying next to him, bloodied face and carved up cheeks with her lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling_ before he finally shook awake again. The warm sensation of blood dripping down his face making him panic in the metal coffin he was trapped in.

“Turn it off,” Huesyth snapped when he noticed the empath’s bleeding. “Get him out of there.”

Sutcliffe motioned to the nurse and finally, the whirring stopped, the table again slowly making its way out. The empath pulled himself into a sitting position as blood gushed onto the front of his formerly pristine hospital gown even with him holding his hand over his face. The nurse frantically rushed him out of the room.

Even though the scan was interrupted, Sutcliffe explained that they still had enough to get at least a proper look at the inner workings of the empath’s brain. It took some time as Bec was being taken care of by the nurse but the image finally cleared. Together, the two doctors studied the monitor showing the animated brain scan and the bright red depiction of one side of the brain.

“The right side of his brain is completely inflamed,” Sutcliffe said, almost in awe as he motioned to the screen with his glasses. “It's anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. The symptoms are only going to get worse.”

“I know,” Huesyth said, leaning over Sutcliffe’s shoulder. “It's unfortunate for Bec.”

Sutcliffe looked over at the other doctor and good-naturedly asked. “What do you smell on me?”

After a moment of consideration, Huesyth reveals. “Opportunity.”

Barely minutes later, Bec returned to the room alone. He was now fully dressed again and with his face cleaned of blood. He stared at the screens, the depictions of his brain completely blue with no highlighted sections. Completely normal.

“We didn't find anything abnormal. No vascular malformations, no tumors, no swelling or bleeding, no evidence of stroke. Nothing. There's nothing wrong with you neurologically,” Sutcliffe explained.

Bec furrowed his brow at the screens, taken aback by the revelation. “So what I'm experiencing is psychological.”

“Well... brain scans can't diagnose, uh, _mental_ disorders. They can only rule out medical illnesses like a tumor, which can have similar symptoms,” The doctor explained. He observed Bec’s troubled expression before continuing. “Look, we'll run some more tests. We'll take some more blood samples, but I imagine they'll prove to be just as inconclusive.”

Defeatedly, Bec nodded to the doctor.

 

Huesyth took the empath home after the appointment, Bec barely saying two words to him throughout the entire drive. It wasn’t that Bec was suspicious of him but he was more than likely having a hard time coping with the information that Sutcliffe gave him. He returned to his office later that evening to once again find Jack waiting for him unannounced. The doctor forced himself to smile politely and invited the older agent in for a drink in front of the fire. Jack, of course, went willingly.

Staring into the dancing flames of the fireplace before him, Huesyth finally broke the silence they had found themselves in. “You knew from the moment you walked into his classroom that you were putting him in a potentially destructive environment.”

“I had eight college girls dead in Minnesota,” Jack defended. “Bec caught their killer for me.”

Huesyth shot back. “He also caught their killer's disease. He can't stop thinking about what it is to take a life.”

“I'd rather he go a little mad than other innocents lose their lives, and I think he would feel the same way.”

 _‘A little mad,’_ Jack says. Bec gushing blood onto a dead body was going a _little mad_.

Huesyth swallowed the aggression threatening to boil over. “Bec is an innocent.”

Jack sighed, obviously not taking to kindly to the interrogating. “Yes, he is. I mean, Bec is genuine. He'll survive _anything_ I could put him through. He will always fight his way back to himself.”

“Not always,” Huesyth denied. “So far. He saw a neurologist today. They found nothing wrong with him. He was very upset by that.”

“You're saying he wanted something to be wrong?” Jack questioned.

“I think he wanted an answer that wasn't a mental illness.”

Jack raised his eyebrows at the doctor. “You think he's mentally ill?”

Huesyth considered his own response carefully. “The problem Bec has is too many mirror neurons. Our heads are filled with them when we are children... supposed to help us socialize and then melt away. But Bec held on to his, which makes knowing who he is a challenge. When you take him to a crime scene, Jack, the very air has screams smeared on it. In those places, he doesn't just reflect. He _absorbs._ ”

 

He was _not_ mentally ill. He couldn’t have been. He didn’t have a good answer as to why Dr. Sutcliffe’s tests came back negative but he was sure that they had to have been wrong. Nevertheless, Bec didn’t have a good enough grasp on the case that Jack had him working because of how badly his last slip.

He eased out of his car, gazing up at the victim’s lonely, empty house among the sparse woods. Flicking on his flashlight, Bec trudged towards the house and pulled off the crime scene tape, entering into the dark abyss of the home.

The floorboards creaked under his boots as he moved slowly into the upstairs bedroom. He tried flicking on the light switch by the door but it just clicked absently without lighting anything. The blood that was pooled and splattered across the ground had dried and stained the wood a dark burgundy color. The empath moved into the middle of the room, checking the time on his watch.

“It's 10:36. I'm in Greenwood, Delaware. My name is Bec Reyes.”

His light moved from the walls he was scanning to the edge of the bed where a pair of eyes were looking back at him from the darkness under the bed. As soon as their eyes met, the figure shot back out of sight. He should’ve been scared. Maybe reacted a little more than the slight adrenaline spike that he did get. But he couldn’t trust his brain to show him the truth anymore and he instead edged down into a crouch to check again before the bed completely overturned towards him. The figure shot out and Bec rose to his feet to grab a hold of what appeared to be a dead woman’s arm before she could escape.

With a sickening sound though, a whole sheath of skin peels itself off her arm, leaving the empath holding a macabre ‘glove’ as she scampered out of the room with only a pained grunt.

The horror in his mind began setting in as he shined his light after her and she disappeared into the darkness of the house. He looked down at the skin in his hand before looking back up and finding trees. Long expansions of dark woods and snow surrounded him with no sign of the house, the skin, or the dead woman that had run from him. He swiveled around, aimlessly pointing his flashlight in all directions in search of something familiar and finding nothing. He checked his watch again and couldn’t help but wince when the hands told him that nearly four hours had passed.

He looked up again, scanning the trees and taking a few stuttering breaths before exclaiming into the darkness, loud enough that maybe the dead woman could hear him. “It's 1:17 AM. W-We're in Greenwood, Delaware. And my name is Bec Reyes. And you're alive! If you can hear me, you're _alive!_ ”

His words echoed into the night and no response came back to him. He scrubbed at the dried blood crusted over his mouth from his nose.

 

“Why did you call me?” Beverly asked as she and the empath stood over the dark, disheveled room. “Why not Jack? Why not the police?”

“I called you because... I'm not entirely sure what I saw was real,” Bec revealed. His mind played so many tricks on him that he wasn’t even sure how he managed to find his way back to his car long enough to even call Beverly.

The woman was quiet for a second, observing the room before finally saying. “Then let's prove it.”

Relieved by her want to help, Bec began. “I grabbed her arm and an entire layer of dead skin separated from the underlying tissue like she was wearing a glove.”

“That's why she doesn't bleed.”

“Right. There's no circulation. There's nothing alive in the tissue to bind it.”

Beverly asked. “What did you do with it?”

The empath paused, the gap in his memory offering no possible location to the skin. “I don't know.”

“You can’t remember?” Beverly asked, not bothering to wait for an answer before continuing. “Could be a staphylococcal infection. That, or leprosy.”

“Her eyes were discolored. She was, uh, malnourished. Jaundiced. Her liver was shutting down. She was... deranged.”

“So she mutilated a woman's face because she thought it was a mask.”

Bec thought a moment before it finally came to him. “She can't see faces. If she did kill Beth LeBeau, she might not even know she did it.”

“Then why did she come back?” Beverly questioned.

The empath stared off into the shadows of the room like something was going to emerge from them. He mumbled lowly. “To convince herself she didn't.”

Beverly raised an eyebrow at the man. “Is that why you came back?”

“If I wasn't clear on that issue, I know I didn't kill Beth LeBeau. I just want to know who did.”

“Me too,” Beverly replied. “You're the subject of a lot of speculation at the bureau.”

Bec gave a disgruntled huff. “Oh, yeah? What are they speculating?”

“That Jack pushed you right up to the edge and now you're pushing yourself over.”

That sounded about accurate but he wasn’t _trying_ to push himself over the edge. It was just ending up that way without any help from him.

Bec sighed softly. “This killer... can't accept her reality. I can occasionally identify with that. That being said, I feel... relatively sane.”

Then, a muffled voice filtered into the house from outside. Someone shouting the empath’s name from the dark. Immediately, Bec froze in his slight pacing of the room and looked over to Beverly for confirmation. She raised her eyebrows at him in confusion and almost worry at who it could be, meaning he wasn’t hearing things. A few heavy knocks seemed to rattle the house along with more shouting of his name and finally, the two moved from the bedroom and back downstairs.

Bec expected to find the dead woman. He had shouted his name into the night and maybe she had heard him.

The shape of a person could be seen silhouetted by the early morning light coming through the curtained front door. A person impatiently bouncing back and forth on their feet as they waited before knocking on the door again, causing both he and Beverly to jump.

“Bec? Are you in there?” The voice called again. Familiarity suddenly struck the empath like a brick and the tension from the possibility of a killer waiting beyond the door melted away.

“Do you know who that is?” Beverly asked.

Bec didn't answer. Instead, he rushed to the door and throwing it open to see a woman standing there. Her ivy colored eyes quickly shooting up to meet his and immediately softening with relief. She was wrapped in a warm, black winter coat but her bottoms seemed to be long pajama pants with simple slip-on shoes. Her shoulder length, black hair and straight across bangs were tied back in a messy ponytail.

“Jesus Christ, there you are!” The woman blurted, shooting forward to wrap her arms around his neck in a tight hug. She held him close for a few long moments before pushing him away. “Why would you leave a message like that. You scared me and Bianca half to death.”

Bec furrowed his brow at the shorter woman. “What?”

She ignored him momentarily when she noticed the other woman standing awkwardly behind the empath, quietly observing the interaction. Smiling politely, the woman offered Beverly her hand. “Hi, Sofia Crow. I’m Bec’s half-sister.”

Surprised, Beverly shook Sofia’s hand. “Beverly Katz. I work with your brother.”

“Ah, that’s nice,” Sofia commented before turning back to the confused empath. “What the hell possessed you to call like that in the middle of the night? I went to your house, I called your work. Nobody knew where you were and you left some cryptic location-”

“Wait, wait, wait, Sofia, what are you talking about?” Bec interrupted.

Sofia recoiled slightly, narrowing her eyes at her brother. “Bec, _you_ called me at like midnight saying you were being attacked by some dead woman. I thought you were getting murdered! And then you just yelled about this place and hung up.”

She motioned around to the vacant house. Bec felt both of the women’s eyes on him, awaiting some kind of response but the empath couldn’t find an intelligent one. He didn’t remember calling her but that empty four hours left enough to the imagination.

Sofia noticed the way his expression began to crumble, gently resting her hands on his forearms in an attempt to steady him. “Bec, are you okay? I mean, I got here as soon as I could but, dude, you were like an hour and a half away. I had to make sure you weren’t dead in a ditch somewhere first.”

Bec choked on the fear lodged in his throat but shook his head slightly with a pitiful attempt at a smile. “No, Sof. I’m fine.”

 

The house was quiet except for the gentle hum of the snake terrariums’ lights. The early morning sun had finally peaked above the horizon and lit up his living room with a soft glow. Sofia had stripped off her heavy coat since entering Bec’s house, leaving her in a large, worn graphic t-shirt and sitting back on his couch with an offered mug of coffee slowly cooling in her hands.

Uncomfortable with the silence, Bec fidgeted in the armchair across from her, she hadn’t said anything in a few tense moments. Her face was almost completely blank as she processed his retellings until finally, she broke the awkward quiet. “How long has this been happening?”

Bec was taken aback by her sudden question but stammered for an answer. “Uh, a few months.”

The wrong answer apparently because Sofia’s shoulders dropped in defeat and her mug clacked against the coffee table when she set it down. “And I’m just hearing about this now, _why?_ ”

The empath sighed. “I… I didn’t want you to worry about me, okay? I-I thought-”

“You thought _wrong_ , Bec,” Sofia objected, obviously hurt about being kept out of the loop. “You could’ve died out here and I wouldn’t have known because you don’t talk to me about what’s happening with you anymore.”

He couldn’t really disagree with that but he had to try and defend himself with all the stubborn glory inherited from their father. “Nothing has happened that I couldn’t handle.”

“Oh, so waking up bleeding in places you don’t remember going to is something you can handle by yourself?” Sofia badgered. “You nearly had a mental breakdown when you woke up in the kitchen as a kid.”

“Yeah, but I’m not _twelve_ anymore, Sofia,” Bec snapped back.

“Sleepwalking isn’t the same as hallucinations and blackouts. You need medical help before you get yourself killed!”

“I’ve already tried,” Bec admitted. Confused, Sofia furrowed her brow at him to get him to continue. “I went to a neurologist yesterday and he said that there is nothing _physically_ wrong with me. That it must be all in my head.”

“That’s _bull_ and you know it. Go to ten different doctors and they’ll tell you ten different things,” Frustrated, Sofia flopped back onto the couch with a disgruntled sigh, running her hands over her tired face. She took a deep breath before continuing. “The doctor said you were okay? Even after you told him all of the side effects you’ve had?”

Bec nodded slightly. “They’re doing more tests but… he seemed sure about it. My therapist is adamant that it's all mental illness.”

She paused for a second before saying. “I’m… not denying that you probably have some form of mental illness but nosebleeds? Blackouts? The pain that you’re in? Bec, you need to get another opinion.”

Bec didn’t answer, eyes cast down at the floor in shame.

“W-We need to call mom or Amaund or _somebody_ -” “ _No_ , Sofia,” He quickly cut her off. “You know how they get about the sleepwalking.”

She cocked her head to the side. “What? Rightfully worried about you?! These murders you immerse yourself in aren’t healthy for you. This _lifestyle_ isn’t healthy for you.”

The empath couldn’t help but scoff softly to himself. She sounded like Huesyth but worse. “I know. God, I know.”

Slowly, Sofia leaned forward, gently grabbing a hold of her brother’s hand to draw his attention back up to her. Her face wrecked by worry, the circles under her eyes darker from being awoken so early.

“You can stay with me and Bianca for a while if you want. Avery would love to see you. Just to take some time off of work to get your head straight. I’m sure your boss will understand.”

Outwardly cringing, Bec separated the eye contact again. “He definitely wouldn’t. He gave me a chance to leave and I didn’t take it. Now he expects tenfold.”

Sofia seemed disgusted by that fact. “Then he’s an asshole and you need to quit. Have you told him about everything happening with you?”

“N-no. Not everything,” Bec muttered.

“Bec, w-” “Because for once I actually feel like every bad thing that came with this empathy is being put towards something _good_. I’m helping people, Sofia.”

“How many people are you gonna be helping when you fry your brain?”

The metal band of her wedding ring was hot against his skin from where the coffee mug heated it up. Her black nail polish was chipping slightly at the tips. Bec focused on anything besides the toxic thoughts rushing through his head because they hurt far more than the ring. He squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“I can do this, Sofia. I can.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, obviously not believing him for a second but keeping her mouth shut about pressing on him any further. “But you don’t have to do this alone.”

 

He drew another circle, scribbling in the numbers and clock hands. “It's 7:05 PM. I'm in Baltimore, Maryland. My name is Bec Reyes.”

He dropped the pen into the notebook as Huesyth came back around to the desk to take it from him.

“Thank you for humoring me,” The doctor said.

Bec sighed, leaning back in Huesyth’s desk chair as the taller man observed his drawing. “I feel like I'm seeing a ghost.”

“Regarding this killer or yourself?”

“Both.”

“Well, she's real. You know she's real. There's evidence of her existence. When you found her, your sanity did not leave you.”

“Time did,” Bec revealed.

“You lost time again?” Huesyth asked, raising an eyebrow at the empath.

Bec nodded slightly. “I apparently called my sister in the middle of the night and scared her and her wife so bad that she almost called the cops. She had to track me down to the crime scene because I didn’t remember calling her.”

The doctor paused. “Is she alright?”  
“Oh, yeah, she’s fine. She just thinks my brain is gonna melt out of my ears and that I should get a second medical opinion.”

That drew a breathy chuckle from the taller man as placed the notebook back on the edge of the desk. “I spoke to Dr. Sutcliffe. We briefly discussed the particulars of your visit. Would you like to discuss them with me?”

“There are no particulars,” Bec shot back. “He didn't find anything wrong.”

“Then we keep looking for answers. Perhaps you would permit me to run some tests of my own?”

Bec ran a hand over his jaw in thought. “You wouldn't publish anything about me, would you, Huesyth?”

The doctor raised an eyebrow at the younger man. “If there were ever anything that might be of therapeutic value to others, I'd abstract it in a form that would be totally unrecognizable. Your identity would be completely protected.”

A clinical response, something expected of a therapist. Bec rolled his eyes at it. “Just do me a favor and publish it posthumously.”

“After your death or mine?” Huesyth asked.

With a half-hearted shrug, Bec muttered. “Whichever comes first.”

Huesyth went quiet, idly organizing items on his desk as he let the empath’s comment hang in the air. “Have you considered Cotard's Syndrome? It's a rare delusional disorder in which a person believes he or she is dead.”

Bec eyes momentarily widened. “For the killer or me?”

“The killer, of course,” Huesyth soothed and Bec shrunk back into the office chair in relief.

“Well, of course. Um, she couldn't see the victim's face. Or she was trying to uncover it.”

“The inability to identify others is associated with Cotard. It's a misfiring in the areas of the brain which recognize faces, and also in the amygdala, which adds emotion to those recognitions. Even those closest to her would seem like imposters.”

“So she... she reached out to someone she loved, someone she trusted. She felt betrayed, became violent.”

“She can't trust anything or anyone she once knew to be trustworthy. Her mental illness won't let her.”

That sounded painfully familiar and Bec could tell what Huesyth was getting at. It was getting harder and harder to ignore.

 

“We matched the tissue samples from the crime scene to your daughter's medical records,” Jack explained as he observed the photo of a beautiful, smiling girl with dirty blonde hair. Almost unrecognizable from the corpse they’d been tracking.

“I was almost relieved when I got that phone call,” The woman lamented. She looked so much like the dead woman Bec found under the victim’s bed. But this was Jocelyn Madchen, the mother of Georgia Madchen. How odd it was to put a name to the face of the ghost that had haunted Bec’s dreams the night before. “I thought that you had found her and she was, um... would be at peace.”

“You thought she might be dead?” Bec asked from across the conference table.

She giggled bitterly. “Well, that makes me sound like a horrible mother. I tried to be a good mom. I tried to do everything that I could. I just don't want her to be in pain.”

“No one's doubting your dedication to your daughter, Mrs. Madchen,” Bec encouraged.

“How well did she know Beth LeBeau?” Jack asked.

“They were best friends. They went to school together, um, until it was unsafe for Georgia to go to school.”

“When did you first recognize that your daughter was struggling with mental illness?”

Mrs. Madchen blinked and almost seamlessly retold. “When she was nine and she told me that she was thinking about killing me and said that she was already dead.”

“What sort of symptoms did she have?” Bec added.

“She had seizures, hallucinations, psychotic depression. I was grateful when she was catatonic,” The woman gave an awkward laugh but neither men joined her.

Jack continued. “Was she ever violent?”

“Sometimes.”

“What did her doctor say?” The empath cut in.

“Not much. She spent months at a time in the hospital. Blood tests and brain scans, and all of them inconclusive. They could never tell me what was wrong.”

Jack slid the photo across the table to Bec. He tried to bury his reaction to her struggles. “And you still don't know?”

Finally, something in her broke and Mrs. Madchen gave another watery laugh to cover the tears forming in her eyes. “They would just say it was this or it was that. You know, they were just… they were just always guessing. And I did my own research. I wrote down every word that the doctors said, the different terminology. Learned a lot. But mostly what I learned is, um, how little is actually known about mental illness. All they know, it's rarely about finding solutions. It's just more about managing expectations.”

Shaken by the conversation, Bec returned to Jack’s office after the interview to find the older agent staring off at the wall in thought, his face set in a deep look of determination as the empath entered.

Bec took one look at the older man and asked. “Managing your expectations?”

“ _Changing_ my expectations,” Jack replied surely. “You know, when Miriam Lass died, I had to come back here to this office to pack up, but... that got to be too overwhelming. I thought I should just leave, seeing as how I had gotten a trainee killed. That lack of leadership on my part, that was my responsibility.”

Jack rose from where he’d been seated on the edge of a side table and stood in front of the empath. Bec countered. “You didn't kill Miriam Lass. The Chesapeake Ripper did.”

“It didn't feel that way to me. I pulled her out of a classroom like I pulled _you_ out of a classroom.”

Bec rolled his eyes again with a soft scoff. “She was a student. I am a teacher.”

“I'm still just as responsible for you as I was for her,” Jack ordered.

“I'll take my own responsibility.”

“Well, not from me you won't. We can do it together. _I_ broke the rules with Miriam. I encouraged her to break the rules. I am breaking the rules with you now.”

“By letting an unstable agent do field work?” Bec jeered.

“Special agent,” The older man corrected. “That means you represent the FBI. You still represent me.”

With a raised brow, the empath shot back. “Have I misrepresented you, Jack?”

“ _No,_ no,” Jack quickly denied. “But you have me curious. Why are you still here when the both of us know that this is bad for you?”

“Oh, now do you want me to quit?” Bec questioned.

“No. No, you had an opportunity to quit. You didn't take it. Why not?” Jack continued, shaking his head like a disapproving father. “Let me tell you what I think. I think that the work you do here has created a sense of stability for you. Stability is good for you, Bec.”

Bec plucked his glasses off his face to rub at his eyes. “Stability requires strong foundations, Jack. My moorings are built on sand.”

“I'm not sand. I am _bedrock_ ,” Jack reminded firmly. “When you doubt yourself, you don't have to doubt me too.”

 

“The Jamon Ibérico,” Huesyth named as he and his guest observed the succulent ham still on the bone.

“Still love your little rare treats, don't you, Huesyth?” Dr. Sutcliffe grinned. “The more expensive and difficult they are to obtain, the better.”

The taller man carved expertly at the meat. “It's a distinction that adds an expectation of quality.”

“Not always,” Sutcliffe retorted as he sipped at his wine.

Huesyth slipped the slice of the meat onto his guest’s plate, soon returning to his own chair. “Well, for Ibérico, only a few thousand are selected each year. But is the pig, once fattened and slaughtered and air-cured, really superior to any other pig? Or is it simply a matter of reputation preceding product?”

“It's irrelevant. If the meat-eater thinks it's superior, then belief determines value,” Sutcliffe explained, taking a bite of the given ham.

“A case of psychology overriding neurology.”

“So, we know how Ibérico gets his pigs. How did you get yours?”

Huesyth raised a questioning eyebrow at the other man. “Are you referring to Bec Reyes?”

Sutcliffe nodded. “We know you're fond of the rarified. What makes him so rare?”

The taller man knew they didn’t have enough time in the evening for him to explain everything that makes him so very fond of the empath or what makes Bec so rare to him. He also knew that Sutcliffe was speaking in clinical terms and he didn’t care to know about Bec’s hard-earned affection, gentle kisses, and gorgeous moans. That was trusted information that would stay with Huesyth.

Instead, Huesyth gave the other doctor the clinical psychologist response he wanted. “Bec has a remarkably vivid imagination. Beautiful. Pure empathy. There is nothing he can't understand and that terrifies him.”

“So you set his mind on fire.”

The empath was burning long before he had met Huesyth but the doctor will admit his pushing didn’t help. “Imagination is an interesting accelerant for a fever.”

Huesyth could tell Sutcliffe was beginning to feel the guilt weight on him. “So... how far does this go? Do you put out the fire or do you let him burn?”

“Bec is my friend. We will put out the fire when it's necessary.”

“He has asked for more tests,” Sutcliffe revealed.

“Now that we have confirmed what it is, it'll be easier to hide from him.”

 

The whirring of the machine was still as unnerving as it was the first day but another night of MRI tests could be the thing that sets his sister’s mind at ease. Even if it meant wearing the scratchy, revealing hospital gown again.

“Here, put these in,” Dr. Sutcliffe said, offering the empath another pair of earplugs to put on. Bec accepted them and laid back onto the table again. “This'll be over before you know it.”

The doctor flipped a switch on the machine and the tray holding Bec slid into the tunnel as Sutcliffe exited the room. It came to a stop, whirring and knocking mechanically around him. The earplugs did nothing to silence the bone-rattling sound but Bec tried to breathe deeply in an attempt to stave off another nosebleed. Bec blinks and soon the machine went quiet and the tray exited the tube again. Confused, the empath peered around the darkened room as he sat up again, removing the earplugs and hopping down from the tray.

As he moved to sit up, a droplet of blood trickled from his nose onto the front of his hospital gown. He wiped the bit of blood away, surprised by how little there was but worry began creeping into his mind about why he was bleeding. Nothing seemed to be out of place and he had barely closed his eyes while he was in the MRI.

The hospital was quiet, almost abnormally so. He moved passed the control room to find it empty. He was alone. No one at the controls. After getting dressed and wiping his face, Bec began his shuffle back towards Sutcliffe’s office but he came to a sudden stop outside the door when he noticed a burgundy stain smeared across the knob. Cautiously, Bec used the sleeve of his jacket to push the bar-shaped knob down and open the door.

The office chair was facing away from the door but it looked as if someone was sitting in it. Slowly, the empath approached it.

“Dr. Sutcliffe?” Bec asked.

No answer. As Bec approached, the blood became clear and soon the grotesque smile did too. Sutcliffe’s head was nearly beheaded at the mouth because of the jagged Glasgow smile carved into his face, his head forced back over the top of his chair.

The silence rang loud in his ears until a low hissing rumbled from behind him. Whipping around quickly in a blur of growing paranoia, Bec found himself completely alone.

Very soon, the clicking of the camera and the murmurs of the other FBI agents filled the small office. Beverly ran a UV wand over the expanse of Bec’s clothing in search of traces of blood as Jack quietly observed the body being processed.

“You're clean,” Beverly softly reassured. “You couldn't have done this without getting something on you and there's _nothing_ on you.”

The empath kept his eyes downcasted at the floor as he muttered. “I don't feel clean.”

Across the office, Jimmy lifted a pair of blood scissors from the ground behind the chair, observing the handles. “The murder weapon has the same sort of diseased or damaged tissues that we found at Beth LeBeau's house.”

Brian furrowed his brow at the body. “What's this guy got to do with the other victim?”

The empath awkwardly cleared his throat which drew the others’ attention to him. “Just me.”

“What do you remember?” Jack asked the empath.

“I remember coming here, going into the MRI, getting out, and, uh, finding Dr. Sutcliffe's body.”

The older agent raised his eyebrows at Bec. “No confusion?”

“Well, not that I'm aware of… but my nose was bleeding when I got out. That’s usually a sign that something happened.”

Jack nodded slightly. “Was your Dr. Sutcliffe in the habit of seeing patients after-hours when he's the only one in the office?”

“He was very accommodating.”

“Georgia Madchen followed you here, and while you're ticking away in the MRI, she does this to your doctor.” The older agent motioned to the mutilated body of the doctor. “Why him?”

“She can't see faces. Maybe she thought he was me,” Bec explained.

“All right, while we're at it, why you?”

Bec couldn’t help but shake his head once he averted his eyes. “I don't know. I have a habit of collecting strays. I-I-I told her, tried to tell her the night I saw her, I tried to tell her she was alive. Maybe she heard me... Maybe that hadn't occurred to her in a while.”

 

His brain forced his eyes to open, staring into the dark of his bedroom in search of what unseen force pulled him into consciousness. The night was still upon him and his tired eyes tried to pull him back into sleep. Nervous sweat slicked his body and face, leaving his hair in a wet mess on his head as he pulled himself up to lean over the side of the bed. He doesn’t know what drew him there but it was an unconscious decision to pull the covers back and find a ghostly sickened face staring back at him from the dark under his bed. Shocked, Bec fumbled out of bed and crashed to the floor in an attempt to escape in case the killer attacked him again.

She was the one who recoiled first though. Flinching back at the sudden panicked movements of the empath and curling back in on herself under the bed. When the adrenaline ebbed away, he was strangely calm, cautious still but calm enough to tip his head to the side slightly.

“I see you, Georgia. Think of who you are,” Bec soothed.

In her grim visage he didn’t see horror or rage, but sadness. A deeply seeded ache at the center of her chest that bloomed from his words. She stared back at him, feral and silent.

Bec was not deterred and inched himself closer to her. “It's midnight. You're in Wolf Trap, Virginia. Your name is Georgia Madchen. You're not alone. I’m with you. We are here _together._ ”

A long moment of silence passed between them as her eyes darted around the room, then a distant, raspy whisper emerged from her. “Am I alive?”

Her gnarled hand extended from out of the shadows of the bed and hesitantly Bec reached to her as well, touching their fingers together gently. The tight coil of tension in her body seemed to finally relax and allow her a moment of calm.

 

“She'll recover?” Jack asked.

Huesyth scans through the medical report on the killer that he was given. “Risk of infection is high. She's lost most of her vital fluids. Even some bone mass. She's being treated like a burn victim.”

He pushed the file back across his desk to the older agent and Jack asked. “But she'll recover mentally?”

“She has Cotard's Syndrome. Almost all sufferers of this delusion recover with treatment in extreme cases like this one, electroconvulsive therapy. I'm more concerned about Bec.”

“I thought you'd be more concerned about your colleague Dr. Sutcliffe.”

“I am grieving Dr. Sutcliffe, but Bec is very much alive,” Huesyth explained after studying the older agent’s face. “He's still desperate for an explanation that can make everything right again.”

“I'm, uh, pretty desperate for some explanations myself. I really want to talk to this young woman when she comes to. How much do you think she'll remember?”

“Well, I sincerely hope, for her sake, she doesn't remember much.”

 

Forcefully, he pulled Dr. Sutcliffe's head back as he carved deeply into the rapidly cooling flesh, blood spattering his gloved hands and the neck to toe plastic suit he wore over his suit. He sawed at the skin with the sharpened blade of the scissors until the scent of decaying skin hit his nose. Skin that wasn’t anything close to the freshly killed body below him. He turned to the door and saw the ghastly figure of a woman standing in the office doorway, curiously observing him working. She tilted her head like a puzzled animal at him when he turned to her and he retracted his hands from Sutcliffe’s destroyed face.

Huesyth slowly approached her and she made no move to stop or fight him off. This must’ve been the dead woman that Bec had faced off with. If the hypothesis that Bec had shared with him was true then she had no idea who she was looking at. A blank, bloody visage of a human with no distinguishing features.

He held out the bloody scissors and without hesitation, the dead woman took them from his hands, the drying blood making it sticky. He slipped passed her without issue and she remained staring at the murder weapon in her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NBC's Hannibal, nor its script and characters, and I don't make any money off of this fic. I rewrote it for me and a friend of mine purely for fun as a way to explore the events but with our original characters and just decided to start posting it.
> 
> New chapter every Wednesday!!


	11. “Rôti”

“Someone who already doubts their own identity can be more susceptible to manipulation,” Huesyth explained as he entered his dining room carrying kudal, an Indian curry of sheep intestines, lovingly displayed in a sculpted banana leaf. Dr. Chilton close behind him. “Dr. Gideon is a psychopath. Psychopaths are narcissists. They rarely doubt who they are.”

“I tried to appeal to his narcissism,” Chilton said in defense of his unethical practices.

“By convincing him he was the Chesapeake Ripper,” Huesyth finished for the other doctor.

The shorter man paused as it dawns on him that he’s gotten himself in trouble. “If only I had been more curious about the common mind.”

Huesyth scooped a spoonful of the curry onto Chilton’s plate as the other man gazed out of the glass back doors that revealed the gentle snowfall. “I have no interest in understanding sheep; only eating them. Kudal. A South Indian curry. Made from sheep, of course. In a coconut-coriander-chili sauce.”

Chilton finally took his seat at the table, the taller man going around to serve himself some of the curry.

His expression troubled, Chilton tapped impatiently at the table. “It feels like a last supper.”

“You're not the only psychiatrist accused by a patient of making them kill,” Huesyth eased as he sat down. “Poke around in a psychopath's mind, you’re bound to get poked back.”

“What would you do in my position?” Chilton asked, in seek of some kind of direction.

“Deny everything,” Huesyth advised without pause.

The other man’s lips went into a thin line as it was obviously not the advice he was expecting to get. “I thought psychic driving would have been more effective in breaking down his personality.”

“Psychic driving fails because its methods are too obvious. You were trying too hard, Fredrick. If force is used, the subject will only surrender temporarily. Once a patient is exposed to the method of manipulation, it becomes much less effective.”

Chilton stared across the table at the other doctor as Huesyth enjoyed his meal. “When Dr. Gideon began to suspect he was being pushed…”

“He pushed back,” Huesyth finished. “The subject mustn't be aware of any influence.”

 

Miles away, the house in Wolf Trap was settling but the empath sweating through his night clothes was not. He was sleeping fitfully in his bed, drenched with sweat as the liquid beaded and ran down his face. Images of the corpses that had been haunting him plagued the inside of his eyelids until finally he startled awake, finding himself alone in his bedroom once again but something still felt off.

It was then that he realized he couldn’t move his body or his head, all he could do was dart his eyes around the room in search of whatever was making him so paranoid. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the glowing screen of his alarm clock crack down the middle and long tendrils begin to emerge from the seams. The walls began to decay and wither around him as these tendrils of branches crawled up the bed and came into his sight. The vines engulfed him.

Bec tried to blink the approaching doom away but then found himself staring at the picturesque night sky through the trees. The inky color and speckles of bright stars would’ve been considered beautiful if his naked, decomposing body wasn’t half buried in the moist soil and moss of a shallow grave someone had dug into the forest floor. His midsection was collapsed, the skin torn raggedly away by animals to expose his bare ribs and whatever remaining organs he had to the elements as his blood had been drained into the darkened dirt around him. He’d been there so long that nature had begun growing over and into him. He was left there to rot. To be forgotten by the world.

Something twisted like a knife within his gut, making a spike of nausea rise in him. From an observer’s perspective, it would’ve looked as if his blackened, rotten intestines began coiling and stewing in on themselves but the truth was more horrific when a familiar voice floated to the empath’s ears.

“ **My dearest Bec, what a beautiful masterpiece you make like this…** ” The snake’s smooth but unnervingly calm voice whispered. Something in Bec’s chest snapped as the snake shifted within him to move into his ribcage. “ **What a fitting end for you to be found in a grave so similar to the ones you imagine.** ”

The empath’s throat suddenly filled with what he thought was bile. He choked and convulsed as the obstruction forced its way up his esophagus until the snake’s head cracked his jaw open in order to make enough room for its bulk to slip out. It was in no hurry to give Bec a much-needed breath, sliding out its long, feathered body from the empath’s gaping mouth at an agonizingly slow pace.

“ **Oh, but what a waste of this gorgeous, complex brain of yours** ,” It casually teased despite the pain and discomfort it was inflicting on its host. “ **Left alone to decay before it even had the chance to be understood. But you squandered its potential so regularly.** ”

His throat burned and he gagged as the tail of the serpent finally exited, letting a rush of air into Bec’s collapsed lungs as he coughed and drooled. Despite that, Bec still couldn’t move his head to see just where the snake was going. He didn’t have to keep guess for long though. The serpent coiled around his head, it’s tail wrapping almost lovingly around his pale, bloodless face and neck.

When he didn’t think he could take anymore torment, a tear slipped from Bec’s eye, sliding down the side of his face as he shook with fear.

Begging softly to the serpent. “P… Please…”

The snake rubbed its face against the empath’s, gently wiping away the offending tear. “ **Now, now, my love, there’s no need for tears. You always knew it would end this way.** ”

Finally, feeling returned to his extremities and Bec jerked upwards with a muted shout. No black snake, no forest or the endless night sky, just his dark bedroom and the sheets and blankets kicked off onto the floor. But the feeling of nausea and the pain in his throat was still there; Almost like the experience was real. He was soaked down to the bone in sweat, his long bangs sticking to his forehead in wet coils as he forced unsteady breaths into his burning lungs in an attempt to calm his racing heart. The empath curled in on himself, resting his head on his knees as he rubbed at the tightness in his throat to try to sooth it, blood dripping from his nose.

Sleep was a distant memory after that point, Bec’s mind was working rapidly to try and decipher just what happened in his brain. The sickening feeling that the nightmare caused may have eased but he was still paranoid at every little shadow that moved out of the corner of his eye. He stripped the filthy sheets from his bed, stuffing them into the hamper to be dealt with later when he wasn’t running on barely a few hours of sleep. Replacing the sheets with another clean set, Bec finally jumped in the shower to wash off the blood and sticky sweat from his skin. Not even the hot shower could melt the tension in his body.

He had just pulled on another set of loose sleep clothes, drying his curly dark hair with his towel when a knock came at the front door. The sudden sound startled him but he checked the alarm clock and saw that it was nearing 10 AM, the morning light was beginning to peek into his windows. So he sighed softly and rushed to the front door, pulling it open and finding, to his surprise, Huesyth standing on his porch.

The doctor’s eyes immediately lit up when they landed on the empath, a gentle smile pulling up the corners of his mouth. “Hello, Bec.”

The empath let the towel he had drying his hair fall to his shoulder, not taking his eyes off the doctor. “Hi, Huesyth. I-I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I apologize for visiting so early… but it seems you were already up?”

Huesyth’s careful gaze scanned over Bec’s disheveled appearance, from the dark circles under his eyes to the tenseness in his shoulders. Embarrassed, the empath broke the eye contact first. “Nightmares. Uh, come in, please.”

Bec moved, motioning into the house and allowing Huesyth to step past him so he could shut the door behind him. Tossing the towel aside, Bec addressed the doctor now standing in his living room. “So… why are you here?”

For once, Huesyth wasn’t dressed as properly as he usually was. Instead of a three-piece suit, he had the dress shirt, suit jacket, and his overcoat for the cold. It left his collar bone exposed from the lack of a tie holding it all together. It was the least amount of clothing layers that Bec had seen him in while he was out in public.

“Do I need to have a specific reason to visit my lover?”

“No. The lover isn’t complaining,” Bec managed to quip. “But I think you need a reason to drive an hour in the snow. Don’t you think?”

“I guess you’re right.” A playful glint arose in the doctor’s eyes as he closed the distance between them, his large hands moving to splay across the empath’s hips and pull the shorter man against his front. Suddenly, there's hot breath against Bec’s neck and Huesyth whispered lowly into his ear. “I came because I want you.”

Bec bit into his own lip hard to stop him from letting out a whimper at those words. He balled his fists against Huesyth’s chest as the doctor nibbled at ear lobe with his sharp canines, working down to his jaw.

“Well you, uh, you could’ve called,” Bec mumbled.

The doctor hummed slightly against the empath’s skin. “You’re probably right but you’ve been under so much stress as of late, my dear. I wanted to surprise you.”

He kissed and suckled little bruises into the skin low on the empath’s neck. Huesyth soothed each bite with a flick of his tongue until Bec was shaking with restraint in his arms. He _needed_ Huesyth.

“B-Bedroom,” Bec stuttered when Huesyth’s lips pressed a surprisingly gentle kiss against the scar across the empath’s throat.

Huesyth wasted no time walking the empath backward into the bedroom and it was just the doctor and him in the room. Just them. No black snake or other hallucinations plaguing his mind.

Finally, Huesyth’s lips were pressing against his. They were soft at first and they made a gorgeous warmth spread through Bec’s body. Then the kiss deepened and filled with more tongue and teeth, his hands pulling at the thin shirt clinging to Bec’s frame. The empath whimpered into the kiss as Huesyth pulled away to help him remove the offending shirt, dropping it onto the floor. Their mouths immediately attached again, even though the material of Huesyth’s overcoat scratched at the younger man’s bare chest.

The warmth came back, but this time it was stronger. It was a heat that wasn’t unlike the fever of his nightmares but this time he welcomed it. _Craved_ it even.

Fumbling blindly with the doctor’s clothes, Bec finally managed to pull off the overcoat from his lover’s strong shoulders, going up to clumsily tug at the buttons of his dress shirt until it too fell to the floor. They separated, staring into each other’s eyes and panting into the other’s mouth until Bec’s hands dropped to Huesyth’s waistband and desperately pulled at his belt until it slipped from the loops. It's metal buckle clattered noisily against the floorboards at their feet.

Huesyth grinned, flashing his fangs at Bec’s eagerness and pressing forward to claim his lover’s lips again, running his hands up the smooth skin of the empath’s back. A greedy, possessive little rumble bubbling up from his chest.

Bec pressed the length of his body against Huesyth’s front and felt the heated bulge of the doctor’s hard cock straining in his dress pants. The material of the boxers did nothing to hide his own arousal and the front was already forming a damp spot from the precum leaking from his dick. The doctor guided Bec to lay back on the bed, kissing down the length of his lover’s torso as he tugged down the soiled boxers. Bec’s flushed cock was freed, the chilly air making a shiver run through him before Huesyth ran his clever tongue up his length to pull a shocked groan from the younger man.

“I have never seen anyone as perfect as you, Bec,” Huesyth praised as he sat up again, kicking off his shoes and socks and stripping himself of his pants. He slipped off his own underwear, allowing his thick cock to jut out proudly from the trail of dark-colored hairs leading down from his navel.

Bec’s mouth went dry as the doctor lowered his larger body on top of him. Effectively trapping him under his warmth and pulling another whimper from the younger man when their cocks rubbed against one another from the slow grind of Huesyth’s hips.

“Come on, Huesyth. You feel so good. Please,” Bec muttered to get Huesyth to do something more. “Lube in the side table.”

That got the taller man to separate just long enough to pull the partially empty bottle from the drawer and pour a generous amount into his hand. Then Huesyth is kissing him again and the warmth is bubbling into heat as a slick finger began pressing against his hole, circling the rim first and then pushing in. There wasn’t any more time for teasing when Bec was so desperately writhing against him, moaning into the air as he clutched around Huesyth’s neck. A second finger pushed inside beside the first and pressed against Bec’s prostate, causing him to cry out and hike his legs higher around the doctor’s hips.

Huesyth spread his fingers to stretch him further, thrusting in and out until Bec was clawing at his shoulder blades. “I’m ready. God, I’m ready, Huesyth. I need you…”

The doctor pressed a quick kiss against his lover’s cheek to let him know that he had been heard. “You moan so sweetly for me, darling.”

He pulled his fingers free and stroked lube onto his own cock as Bec pawed at him in search of more sensation to satisfy the heat inside him. It was only a few seconds later before Huesyth was easing his cock into Bec, the burn making Bec’s back bow in a tight curve. The stretch and the length filling him up, making him moan into the curve between Huesyth’s neck and shoulder.

“Ah- _god_ ,” Bec grunted, his blunt nails scratching at Huesyth’s back as he pushed in deeper.

When all of Huesyth’s cock was deep inside, their hips flush against one another, Bec let out a breath that he hadn’t known he was holding. He managed to relax and moaned for Huesyth to “ _Move_ ”.

Huesyth grabbed Bec’s hip to hold as he started to pull out partially then slowly thrust back in. His pace steadily beginning to pick up but keeping a languid, almost loving pace.

“You feel amazing,” Huesyth breathed as he steadily fucked into his lover.

Bec tilted his head up, moving a hand up from Huesyth’s back to his shaved head and pulled him in for another heated kiss. Lips and tongue and teeth pulling at plump, reddened skin.

“Ple-ease,” Bec moaned loudly, stuttering when a particularly hard thrust temporarily knocked the wind at him. “ _There,_ Huesyth.”

The doctor moved most of his bulk off Bec, sitting up on his knees to pick up the pace and fuck into that one spot again and again.

“ _God,_ Huesyth!” Bec yelped, overwhelmed with pleasure.

At first, he thought it was good. Huesyth’s hand moved to Bec’s cock so not only was his prostate being continuously hit but he also had his lover’s tight hand pumping around his dick. But Bec quickly started missing Huesyth’s weight on top of him, his mouth against his, and his hands running across his body.

“Huesyth,” Bec choked out and when did tears start stinging his eyes?

“I’m here, love. I’m here,” Huesyth assured, immediately moving back on top of him and gently stroking his cheek to smudge away the tears.

He kissed the younger man gently but doesn’t stop the steady stroking of Bec’s cock or slow his thrusts. Just a few more thrusts, affectionate words and praises whispered into his ear from Huesyth and Bec was close. _So close._

“Yeah?” Huesyth purred.

Clearly, the empath accidentally voiced the last bit of his thoughts but Bec nodded, biting into his already ruined bottom lip. A knot forming in the pit of his stomach and setting his body on fire. But unlike the cold sweats of his nightmares, this burn was welcomed. Huesyth was still thrusting in and out of him, grinding his hips in tight circles when he was deep inside of Bec before slowly dragging his cock out only to push back again.

Bec was toeing the edge. So, so close that everything in his body was tense. The onslaught of sensation was nearing too much. He was wound up so tight that he swore he was never going to get his release and he’d just be stuck chasing that fire in his gut forever. And then-

“ _I love you_ ,” Bec breathed and finally he came

The empath covered him and Huesyth’s stomachs with thick white streaks and finally, the tension began to slip away. When Huesyth started cumming too, filling Bec up with his own hot seed, all the tension disappeared completely. The fog finally lifted from his mind and allowed him a moment to breathe again as he was filled up.

They were both breathing heavily, panting into each other's mouths. Huesyth’s lips pressed down gently against Bec’s as the younger man’s legs finally slid off of his lover’s hips after they’d basically been turned to jello.

Huesyth’s cock slipped out and he laid down by Bec’s side to stare up at the ceiling like the empath had been doing. They stayed there in comfortable silence for a few long moments as their breathing evened out and soon Bec broke the quiet. “You did _not_ drive all the way here just to have sex with me, right?”

The doctor couldn’t help but laugh softly which made a smile rise on Bec’s face. “Not originally, no, but I was hoping for it.”  
“Uh huh,” Bec hummed, a lazy smile on his face.

The empath’s mind was soothed and the memory of the nightmare was a distant problem until a sudden spike of pain rose in Bec’s head. He groaned and pressed the heel of his palm into his eyes as the headache became unbearable. The empath rose out of bed and scooped up Huesyth’s dress shirt out of the pile to put on. Bec stepped into his bathroom, clattering around inside the cabinet mirror to pull out an almost empty bottle of aspirin and down the last two pills.

He leaned over the sink as the dry pills worked there way down his throat until something dripped into the sink bowl with a quiet noise.

Looking down and seeing a red stain leaking into the drain, Bec cringed and immediately grabbed one of the hand towels to press against his nose. He washed his face again until the blood finally stopped and almost shamefully crawled back into bed with Huesyth who’d moved under the covers, wrapping around the taller man with Bec’s head on his chest.

“Are you alright?” Huesyth asked.

Bec mumbled a dismissive response against his lover’s chest, the exhaustion finally catching up with him as he quickly slipped into sleep. Huesyth, on the other hand, smiled at the sleepy mess laying across him, a sense of calm moving over him until a loud buzzing made his eyes snap open. He looked to the side table to see Bec’s phone buzzing insistently for attention. Huesyth’s hand shot out to keep it from falling off the tabletop and flipped it around to see the name “Sofia” written across the screen. Narrowing his eyes at the offending phone, he pressed the button to deny the call, the buzzing finally stopping, and he slid the phone back onto the side table.

He pulled Bec’s body closer to him, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of the empath’s head.

 

Snow fluttered around him while the FBI and local police scattered about the scene around the abandoned armored van, it's inside spattered with blood. Bec slipped his glasses off of his face, his eyes sliding shut and again the glowing pendulum swung behind his eyelids. When he opened his eyes again, everyone else disappeared from sight and he moved back into the armored truck. Sitting back against the wall in the prisoner holding section and letting his eyes shut again.

_The killer glanced up to the escorting officer sitting opposite to him then over to the nurse on the adjacent bench. He peered down quickly at the handcuffs they had slapped on his wrists before raising his brows at the other men._

_“All I need is one hand free.”_

_Slamming his hand into the bench, the killer dislocated his own thumb and quickly slid his hand free of the cuff. The officer saw this and moved to stop him, punching the killer across the face as he quickly popped his thumb back into place. He yanked the officer aside and when the nurse intended to intervene, the killer slammed his fist into his face. The officer elbowed the killer, getting him in a chokehold against the bench as the killer kicked the nurse in the face again. He threw the officer aside, grabbing the nurse’s head and hitting it against the bench before the officer grabbed him from behind and threw him against the adjacent wall of the armored van._

_Both the nurse and the officer yanked the killer onto his back and as the nurse held him down, the officer threw punches into the killer’s stomach. But the killer used the tight ankle shackles to pin the officer’s neck to the ceiling of the van, effectively choking him out as he held the nurse down. The killer smashed the officer’s head repeatedly against the ceiling until the man fell limp._

_Quickly, he unwrapped the chain and kicked the body aside onto one of the benches, allowing him to flip the nurse onto his back under him and drive the free handcuff into the man’s neck. Ripping out the front of his throat with a gush of blood that sprayed across the inside of the truck._

_The vehicle lurched to a sudden stop, flinging the killer backward as the nurse choked and died on his own blood. Moving swiftly, the killer rose back up onto his legs, lip curling back in a snarling grin before pouncing as the back doors open._

Bec’s eyes slid open again, a puff of his breath visible in front of his face because of the cold. He quickly fumbled for one of the tissues stuffed into his jacket pocket to make sure the blood running down his face didn’t stain Huesyth’s dress shirt that he all but stole from the doctor.

Someone moved to stand by his side and the deep voice made it obvious that it was Jack. “So, does Abel Gideon still believe that he's the Chesapeake Ripper?”

Bec sighed softly. “Abel Gideon is having a difference of opinion about who he is.”

In the tree branches near the abandoned truck were glistening, vibrant red human hearts, sprinkled lightly with snow and strung up from the trees by what seemed to be gut. Other organs and pieces were strung up alongside the hearts, livers, kidneys, and stomachs. The bloodless corpses of the driver, officer, and nurse were ringing the base of the tree, propped up in sitting positions with their torso’s ripped open. The three scientists worked around them, snapping pictures and taking samples from the collection of organs.

Bec continued without taking his eyes off the grotesque scene. “The man who escaped from that van was not in the same state of mind when he did this.”

When Jack and the empath approached, Beverly looked up from her notepad that she was using to jot things down. “He took a uniform, police radio, two 9mm handguns, pepper spray, taser, and handcuffs.”

The empath narrowed his eyes at the bizarre ornaments. “Well, it's what he didn't take.”

“He hung the organs from the branches with veins from the victims,” Beverly said, motioning to the strings.

“Even tied little bows with some of them,” Jimmy commented, pointing to a dangling spleen above him.

“Yeah, it's really impressive,” Brian added from behind the tree.

It was all the younger man needed to prove that Gideon wasn’t the Ripper. He wouldn’t have wasted the meat. Bec addressed Jack again. “The Chesapeake Ripper would _not_ have left the organs behind.”

“Well, if Gideon isn't the Chesapeake Ripper, he's certainly trying to get his attention.”

Beverly gestured to forest line. “Local PD picked up a foot trail leading out of the woods. Boot soles are consistent with the ones we found at the crime scene.”

“How fresh are the tracks?” Jack asked her.

Beverly shrugged slightly. “Two, three hours old.”

“Which direction were they heading?”

“Back to Baltimore.”

The empath could hear Jack’s concerned and frustrated sigh.

 

When Bec and Alana were escorted into Chilton’s office, the other man immediately began his narcissistic spiel when he set his book aside. “I suppose this is my fault too?”

Not yet mentioning the mocking tilt in Chilton’s voice, Alana closed the office door behind them and Bec commented. “You did dodge a bullet. Gideon's escape foregoes a trial and a very public humiliation for you.”

Cocking an eyebrow at the two, Chilton clasped his hands in front of him on his large desk. “And now you are hosting a private one. Next, you'll be accusing me of arranging his escape.”

“No one's making that accusation,” Alana cleared up.

But the empath would not have doubted if that really was the truth.

Chilton quickly cut in. “If we're tossing around the blame, Dr. Bloom, you're due to your fair share. You planted the idea that I was unethically manipulating Gideon.”

“Well, according to Gideon, you were,” Alana chided, gripping the back of one of the guest chairs.

“After you told him I was,” Chilton corrected, offering a toothy grin like he knew the answer to anything and everything. The sudden, violent want to punch the man’s teeth in bloomed in the empath’s mind but was quickly extinguished. “You thought I was manipulating him? He was manipulating you.”

Alana shot back. “You were _pushing_ him.”

“He gave me informed consent to treat him. Said that he was _grateful_ for my help in understanding who he is.”

Completely over arguing, Alana rolled her eyes and Bec finally spoke up again. “What did you help him understand?”

Chilton stood from his chair. “He was not insane when he killed his wife. Killing her drove him insane. I did not convince him that he was a serial killer. I just reminded him of the fact.”

“Gideon is _not_ the Chesapeake Ripper,” Bec snapped, all too harshly. “Although he might have thought he was under your care, _doctor_.”

“Whether he is or he isn't doesn't really matter right now,” Alana continued. “If he thinks he is or even if he's confused on that issue, he will kill again.”

“I hope he does not, I mean for your sake,” Chilton sneered condescendingly at the woman. “Cannot imagine how you would sleep with that on your shoulders.”

The male doctor’s words began to echo in Bec’s mind as a pulsing headache flared up. Less intense than the one from that morning but still painful.

“How did you sleep when Gideon killed your nurse?” Alana demanded. Her voice was becoming too loud, both of them were.

Bec tried to focus the conversation away from the blame, placing a hand on Alana’s shoulder before she jumped over the desk to strangle the other doctor. “What does Gideon want?”

Averting his eyes from the two across from him, Chilton sat back down. “The last thing Abel Gideon said to me is that he intends to tell everyone that he _is_ the Chesapeake Ripper.”

 

“Our fugitive is Abel Gideon.”

The command center for the Gideon Manhunt was buzzing with people. Area maps and info about Gideon had been pinned to the walls for reference. Multiple photographs of the man are on display by the info for reference. Rows and rows of FBI agents listened intently to Jack’s brief. “Former transplant surgeon. Convicted in the first degree in the murders of his wife and her family. He was institutionalized at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he killed a nurse and claimed to be the Chesapeake Ripper.”

Apart from the crowd, Bec leaned against the wall at the back of the room, staring at the floor or at the back of the other agents' heads as they listened to Jack.

“Dr. Gideon escaped this morning after killing three people. He is armed and dangerous. He is believed to be…” Jack’s voice began to blur and fade until Bec looked up again.

The room was covered wall to wall in bleached white racks of deer antlers, much like Hobbs’ cabin. They were mounted to every surface of the walls, branching out from the chairs where agents once sat but are no longer there. But Jack stood among them in his darkly colored suit in stark contrast to the bleached antlers. He slowly approached the empath, staring him down dead on like he was speaking to only Bec.

“-Institutionalized at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally _Insane._ ”

Beads of sweat ran down Bec’s forehead and blinked rapidly in an attempt to stave off the hallucination. The word _‘insane’_ seemed to continue echoing in his ears, dripping into his brain like acid. He opened his eyes again and the antlers were still there but the room was darker. They seemed to have been pressing closer to him like thorny branches meant to snag at his coat tail. Curling into cage him there forever within the horrifying confines of his own twisted mind.

Jack’s voice rose in his ear again, the most distinguishable of the cacophony of voices being, “What kind of crazy are you?!”

Bec thought that the snake was bad, that being found in a shallow grave somewhere in the deep forest was bad, but this was becoming worse. The antlers seemed to be closing in around him to trap him against the wall.

“You kill! You _will_ kill again!”

He ran a hand under his glasses to get to eyes, his hand coming back slick with sweat and his head still pounding until he finally opened his eyes again to see people moving around in front of his vision. Black suited agents getting up to leave the room. The briefing had ended and at the front of the room, Jack was still talking to a few agents that had approached.

Something warm ran down his face and he didn’t even have to look down to know that his nose was bleeding again but he was fast enough to stop it from staining the front of Huesyth’s shirt. He stopped the bleeding as soon as he could, wiping off his face with another tissue. Looking up again, he matched eyes with Jack who was staring at him with concern at his blatant unease before looking away again.

 

“What did you see?” Huesyth asked.

He wanted to sink into the cushion of the therapy chair until he couldn’t come out again. It felt safer like that. Bec swallowed heavily around the knot forming in his throat before answering as honestly as he could. “A thicket of antlers. All I heard was my heart, dim but... but fast, like, um... footsteps fleeing into silence. I don't know how to gauge who I am anymore. I don't feel like myself. I feel like I have been gradually becoming different for a while. I just feel like somebody else.”

“What do you feel like?” The doctor continued gently.

The sound of his heartbeat pounded in his ears, his breathing shaky. He matched desperate eyes with the doctor across from him as almost shamefully admitted. “I feel... crazy, Huesyth.”

The doctor’s face softened minutely at just how weak the other man sounded. “And that is what you fear most.”

“I fear not knowing who I am,” Bec corrected with a shake of his head. “That's what Abel Gideon's afraid of, isn't it? He's like a blind man and somebody got inside his head and... moved all the furniture around.”

“I imagine Abel Gideon would want to find the Chesapeake Ripper to gauge who he is and isn't.” Huesyth leaned forward slightly in his chair towards the younger man. “Bec, you have me as your gauge.”

A dim sense of comfort was gained in the empath from Huesyth’s sureness.

 

The next day, the scientists had lined up the three bodies in the morgue, addressing Jack more than Bec as the empath was staring into the floor instead offering any kind of insight. The light of a new day did nothing to brighten the cloud that had formed within Bec’s head, muddying his senses and thoughts.

“Gideon didn't leave a manifesto,” Beverly started. “We confiscated all correspondence from his outside admirers. We're going through everything now.”

“Good,” Jack praised.

Jimmy added lightly. “Any secret communiqués or coded messages written in bodily fluids or anything else, we'll find them.”

Without looking up, Bec finally cut in to draw all the attention to him. “You won't find anything. Whatever's going on with Gideon, it's in his head.”

“Well, there's not much left in these heads,” Brian quipped, motioning to the bagged up organs. “All organ removal was done postmortem, including the transorbital lobotomies.”

Beverly shrugged and corrected. “It wasn't technically a lobotomy. He didn't remove any of the brains. He just scrambled them.”

Their voices began to fade from his mind when a steady creaking from behind him caught Bec’s attention. He looked over his shoulder to see the dark veins of leafy vines growing through the seams of the morgue drawers lined up on the wall behind him. Following the wines down to the floor to where it was forming a large expansion of fresh soil at his feet, Bec realized that no one else seemed to notice it. Like the forest from his nightmares was slowly rebuilding itself in his waking life.

From beyond his mind, Jack continued asking the other three. “Why remove all of the other organs from the bodies and leave them intact and just scramble the brains?”

Taking his chances, Bec glanced back and the vines were no longer there, the wall and floor completely clean again. He muttered to himself. “That's what they did to him.”

The older agent gave the empath a curious look when Bec looked back at him. “What _who_ did to him?”

“Dr. Chilton, every psychiatrist and Ph.D. candidate who attempted any kind of therapy. Pushed and prodded. Gave him tests. Told him who he was, who he wasn't.”

“All right. I want a list of every therapist, every doctor, any kind of psychiatric professional that worked with or talked to Dr. Gideon.”

Bec ran a hand over his sore eyes. “Alana Bloom will be on that list.”

 

Swimming upstream through the crowd of exiting FBI trainees leaving the lecture hall, Bec moved to the front of the classroom. Alana stood behind the desk looking through her papers as she gathers them up.

She looked up, matching eyes with him for a second before quipping. “Are you my protective custody?”

“You heard?” Bec asked.

“I heard I get an armed escort until Gideon's apprehended,” She explained, zipping up her bag.

“You'll have a real FBI agent,” Bec added. “Not a teacher with a temporary badge.”

“Sleepover would’ve been fun though. You could’ve introduced me to all of the snakes.”

Bec let out a breathy chuckle. “They’re all named after the days of the week. Not exactly... creative.”

She smiled as she walked around her desk but hesitated as she observed his appearance. Gently, she touched his cheek with the back of her hand and it felt like ice against his skin.

“You're really warm,” Alana commented with a furrowed brow.

He pulled his face away from her hand, moving away to sit against her desk. “Yeah, I tend to run hot. They say stress raises body temperature.”

“Maybe you should take an aspirin.”

He shook the new bottle he had bought, hearing the pills rattle within the plastic tube. “Way ahead of you.”

Alana paused briefly. “They're gonna kill Gideon, aren't they?”

Bec matched eyes with her again, her expression obviously worried despite the heinousness of Gideon’s crime. “Whatever happens to him has nothing to do with you.”

“Gideon can't be completely responsible for his actions if he was subjected to an outside influence.”

She was reaching for better answers. It was to be expected in someone who doesn’t see the ugliness in everything around her. “What, like Chilton telling him he's the Chesapeake Ripper?”

“Like me telling him he's not in a state of mind to know who he is.”

Bec sighed softly. “Well, he's gonna want somebody to tell him who he is, and I think he'll be looking for the Ripper to do that.”

Alana moved to sit by his side against the desk. “What do you think will happen if Gideon finds the Chesapeake Ripper?”

The empath didn’t have to think about his response to long. “The Chesapeake Ripper will kill him,” Alana gave him a curious look so Bec elaborated. “He took credit for his work. The Ripper would consider that... _rude_.”

The steadily approaching click of heels on the hard floor outside of the classroom until a dark shape moved around the corner and into the room.

“ _Bec_ ,” A voice snapped as they advanced on the two of them.

The empath’s head shot up and he immediately stood upon seeing Sofia, again rather relieved upon spotting her brother.

“Sofia, hey,” Bec quickly greeted before she could start chewing him out for whatever reason she was there for. He motioned to the woman standing next to him who was no doubt making a mental note of everything she was seeing. “This is Dr. Alana Bloom.”

Sofia smiled politely, if a little tightly, at the other woman, sticking her hand out for Alana to shake.

“Hi there, I’m Bec’s half-sister. Sofia. Doctor, huh?” She looked back at Bec over Alana’s shoulder and mouthed. “Is it this doctor?”

Bec shook his head. “No, no, different doctor.”

Sofia softened, patting Alana’s hand while Alana commented. “I didn’t know you had a sister, Bec.”

“Bec isn’t exactly the kind of person to disclose anything unless you damn near force him to,” Sofia explained, raising an eyebrow at the empath when he gave her a pointed look. “I need to talk to you, Bec.”

“You couldn’t have called?”

That seemed to have struck something in the younger woman and she was trying not to start screaming at him. She said tightly. “ _Now_ , Bec. Please.”

He furrowed his brow at her but said his goodbyes to Alana and followed Sofia out of the classroom. The younger woman stayed abnormally quiet as they made their way out of the building.

“Sofia, what’s wrong?” Bec finally asked.

At first, his sister didn’t respond but she finally sighed and stopped in her tracks. “I _did_ call you. Yesterday morning. I was trying to talk to you about doctor’s appointments, it rang twice and then went to voicemail.”

“I never saw you calling,” Bec slipped his phone out of his pocket, going through his call history to find he did have a missed called from Sofia yesterday morning at around 10:28 AM. The same time Huesyth was at his house. He swallowed heavily and looked back up at his sister, waiting impatiently for an excuse. “I was with my therapist.”

“At 10 in the morning? You said you had evening appointments.”

“Yeah, I’ve been sleeping with him,” Bec blurted rapidly before he could change his mind.

A silence fell between them. Sofia gaped at her brother for a long moment, processing just what she had heard before a punched out laugh escaped her mouth. The smile dropped, however. “You’re not serious, right?”

Bec stammered for a response. “I-I wish I wasn’t.”

“You’re screwing your _therapist_?”

“Dating. I’m _dating_ my therapist,” Bec quickly corrected.

“That doesn’t make it any better, Bec!” Sofia exclaimed with a huff. “Isn’t dating your therapist kind of… illegal? For at least one of you?”

The empath paused slightly. “Yes… in some ways”

“Then why are you doing it?!”

“Because when two consenting adults like each other very, very much-” “Okay, okay. Shut up,” Sofia snapped, waving her hands in front of his face. She sighed in frustration. “I’m not gonna tell you who and who not to sleep with, Bec. But if this doctor guy turns off your phone while I’m trying to get a hold of you again, I _will_ kick his ass.”

“I don’t even know if it was him that did it, Sof. I could’ve turned it off in the middle of the night and not remember.”

She furrowed her brow at him again. “You still losing time?” Hesitantly, he nodded. “You tell your doctor?”

“...M-My neurologist was murdered.”

Sofia seemed shocked silent, she couldn’t help but laugh pitifully at the strangeness of the situation. “ _What_ is your life?”

He shrugged slightly. “I ask myself that every day.”

“You still got aspirin on you?” Sofia asked. Bec fumbled for the bottle in his pocket, handing it over to the younger woman so she could down two of the pills. Cringing as she swallowed them dry, she shook her head in disbelief. “I have no idea what to do. How am I supposed to help with this?”

Bec sighed before pulling Sofia against his front, her letting out another watery laugh against his shoulder as she wrapped her arms around him. “I don’t wanna lose you, Bec.”

“You’re not gonna lose me,” Bec soothed, squeezing her gently. “I’m going to figure this out, okay?”

She nodded against his shoulder, pulling back from the hug to wipe the tears that were threatening to fall from her eyes and smudge her dark makeup. Huffing softly in an attempt to not start crying in public.

“I… I made some calls to different doctors. We can set up some appointments and I’ll drag you there if I have to but we’re going to do this. I don’t care what your therapist boyfriend tells you. We’re doing this _together_.”

“And what if it is just me losing my mind? What if I’m just crazy, Sofia?”

Sofia gave him a pitying expression. “There’s no such thing as being ‘just crazy’. If that’s the case then you’re getting treatment and not dying out at your house in the middle of nowhere. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

She pulled his arm forward so she could grasp it as they continued walking, not waiting for another stubborn refusal from her brother. He allowed himself to be tugged along and couldn’t force back the relieved smile.

 

“Dr. Paul Carruthers,” Jack said, introducing the man sat back in the office chair with his throat slashed and tongue yanked out of the hole and dangling across the collar of his shirt. “Wrote an article for the Journal of Criminal Psychology in which he described Dr. Gideon as being a pathological narcissist who suffers from psychotic episodes.”

It hadn’t been that long since Bec had said ‘goodbye’ to Sofia that he was immediately called to another death at Gideon’s hands. The evening was setting in and the body was still slightly warm.

“Let's hope he got some satisfaction from being proved right,” Bec commented.

Jack shrugged, obviously too tense about Gideon to have any other sort of reaction. “I think this is about more than just getting the Chesapeake Ripper's attention.”

“Gideon's mind was dissected by psychiatrists and, as a surgeon, he is applying his own skill set,” The empath narrowed his eyes at the hanging muscle. “He gave you something better to do with your tongue than wag it.”

Bec could feel Jack eyeing him at that comment but Brian cut in. “No, that's not how he died. Drained him till his heart stopped.”

“Got a little on his collar,” Beverly said from behind them. “Other than that, didn't spill a drop.”

“That's because it's all in here,” Jimmy added, lifting up one of the bags of assorted blood. “Four-and-a-half liters all packed in ice. ‘Please deliver to the Red Cross,’” He read from a note left on top of the box.

“That's considerate,” Beverly hesitantly chimed in.

Jack clipped. “He's peacocking for the Ripper.”

“This is like flowers and chocolate before a first date,” Bec noted, eyes traveling down the body until he noticed the victim’s hand clutching onto what seemed to be a computer mouse.

He lowered himself down to its level and pressed the victim’s finger down on the control button which caused the computer screen behind him to light up. The crimson red headline splayed across the homepage of Tattlecrime.com reading: “CHESAPEAKE RIPPER RIPS AGAIN.” A graphically thorough image of the newly deceased doctor directly accompanying it.

The others in the room gathered around him, all taking in the sight on the computer screen until Jack asked. “How is this news already?”

“Somebody from the Baltimore PD must've taken a picture with their phone and sold it to Tattlecrime,” Brian tried to reason.

But Jack pointed to the blood bags still hanging behind the victim’s head in the photo. “The photo was taken before the blood was put on ice. Dr. Gideon was still here.”

Bec mumbled. “He has Freddie Lounds.”

 

A body with its throat slit and tongue yanked out surfaced the next day but it wasn’t Paul Carruthers. It was laid out on a morgue slab alongside the other as Alana identified it. “Dr. Carson Nahn. He's the psychiatric attending at Western General. He interviewed Dr. Gideon for the same psychopathy survey I participated in two years ago.”

“Total frenectomy,” Brian explained. “Webbing under the tongue. Even the connective tissue all the way into the throat is cut free and pulled through for the, uh, desired effect.”

Jack sighed, addressing the female doctor. “Still no word from Dr. Chilton?”

“He hasn't answered his phone since yesterday and didn't show up to work today,” Alana answered, obviously starting to feel the worry. She glanced to Bec, both of them assuming the worse for Chilton.

“Gideon wants to lure the Ripper. He's going to offer up the man who disrespected both their identities,” Bec added.

“Every detail of Dr. Carruthers' murder as described meticulously in Freddie Lounds' article has been faithfully reproduced except... for one,” Jack pulled back the sheet covering Nahn’s shoulders to reveal a bruised stump in place of his right arm.

Bec furrowed his brow at the discovery.

“What's different about Carson? Why amputate _his_ arm?” Alana inquired.

“Did Freddie write anything about this?” Jack asked Brian to which Brian said no.

They all shared equally puzzled expressions but something in the empath’s heated brain clicked into place and a thought arose. “Abel Gideon didn't kill this man. The Chesapeake Ripper did.”

“You said the Chesapeake Ripper would want to _kill_ Gideon for taking credit for his work,” Alana reminded.

“Gideon isn't alone anymore and the Ripper isn't going to risk exposure, so, no, he's... he's, um... He's telling us where to catch him,” Bec looked up at Jack, gesturing to him with his chin. “Actually, he's telling you.”

“Me?” Jack questioned.

“Where's the last place you saw a severed arm, Jack?”

 

The dark world outside the SUV window passed in a blur with the snow on the ground. Despite the cold nipping at him, Bec’s face was slick with sweat and his hands twitched in his lap. But despite that, he could feel Jack studying him and probably itching to say something.

Finally, Jack spoke. “I want you to wait outside.”

Without sparing the older agent a look, Bec mumbled back. “That's probably best.”

“You look like hell, Bec.”

“I feel like hell. Actually, no, I feel... Uh, fluid, like I'm spilling. Must have come down with something. I hope it's not contagious,” Bec rubbed at his stinging eyes.

“This work that we do… It will compromise your immune system if you allow it. You've got to keep things in perspective. You've got to keep yourself in perspective.”

“Well, myself is a little hazy at the moment.”

“You've gotta start taking better care of yourself,” Jack badgered.

“God, you sound like my sister,” Bec mumbled, more to himself than to Jack. “Build my resistance?”

“You just can't take it all in. You've got to let go of as much of it as you can. You just gotta let go.”

“You know, it's hard to shake off something that's already under your skin.”

Jack didn’t comment on that little rambling and when they finally arrived back at the observatory, the SWAT moved in front of their SUV in preparation for entering the building. The older agent gave Bec one last look before he too exited the vehicle to join the others. He watched the distorted figures move outside through the blur of the water running down the windshield and when he was sure that Jack and the team were heading up to the lone building, Bec to slipped out of the passenger seat.

He stepped out onto dry concrete, no sign of the heavy rain from the windshield. Moving to follow them, the empath was interrupted again by a voice calling for him. He cast a foggy look to the treeline surrounding the observatory and something within the darkness moved, reflecting the light of the moon off its body.

The black snake raised its head up as it seemed to float on top of the snow, even from a distance, it's bead-like eyes captured a blueish glitter. It slithered off slowly, for once, without saying anything at all. Bec moved, drawn towards the treeline, and heading away from whatever was happening inside the observatory.

 

The car door opened and closed, a disappointed sigh and the jingle of keys in the ignition. But Gideon’s movements paused before he suddenly broke the silence. “I was expecting the Chesapeake Ripper,” He turned, looking into the backseat at the woozy empath holding a gun at his face. “Or are you he?”

But it wasn’t Gideon. It was Hobbs in the front seat with his dead, cloudy eyes staring back at him through the shadows. “Turn around. Don't look at me.”

The figment listened, turning his eyes away but it didn’t keep him from speaking. “You are looking a little peaky, Mr. Reyes, if you don't mind my saying. I may be crazy, but you look _ill_.”

Bec was sweating, the hand holding out the gun was swaying unsteadily and the skin seemed gray. But when Hobbs’ eyes looked back at him again through the rearview mirror, Bec snapped. “ _Drive._ ”

The eyes narrowed. “Who is your doctor?”

 

Huesyth opened his door and was immediately met by the face of Abel Gideon but behind, obscured by the shadows was a sweating and pale Bec holding a gun to Gideon’s back. The doctor blinked to hold back his surprise but moved willingly to allow Bec to walk Gideon inside. The empath sat the killer down at the head of Huesyth’s dining table, keeping his gun held at his side and not daring to meet Huesyth’s eyes.

“I'm having a hard time thinking,” Bec panted out, he stared at Huesyth’s chest and not anywhere else as he tried to explain himself. “I feel like I'm losing my mind. I-I don't know what's real.”

Calmly, Huesyth checked his watch. “It's 7:27 PM. You're in Baltimore, Maryland and your name is Bec Reyes.”

“No, I don't care who I am!” Bec seethed before he slowly turned, raising his gun shakily to aim at Gideon, who remained silent as he observed the scene. “Just tell me... if he's real.”

“Who do you see, Bec?” Huesyth asked.

“Garret Jacob Hobbs,” Bec confessed. “Who do you see?”

Gideon stared down the barrel of the gun almost casually, more or less trying to put on a brave face. Huesyth looked between his copy cat and the empath before he responded. “I don't see anyone.”

The admission obviously threw Bec into more mounting confusion as he fought the welling tears, terrified of his own impending madness. “No, he's _right_ there.”

“There's no one there, Bec.”

Bec shook his head. “No, no, you're lying.”

“We're alone. You came here alone. Do you remember coming here?”

Bec’s head whipped back around to face the doctor, his gun lowering, and he wept. “No, please don't lie to me!”

“Garret Jacob Hobbs is _dead._ You killed him. You watched him die.”

“What's happening to me?!” Bec wailed, rubbing his face, desperately trying to hold on.

“Bec, Bec! Bec, you're having an episode. I want you to hand me over the gun.”

The empath shook violently. What Huesyth at first thought was him denying the doctor access to the gun was proved wrong when the empath’s hand fell away and his eyes were rolling back into his head. Blood rushed down the empath’s face from his nostrils, dripping onto his front, his boots, and the floor. Though Huesyth continued trying to talk to the empath it was obvious his words weren’t going through anymore.

Quickly, Huesyth moved forward to slip the gun out of Bec’s grasp before he could hurt himself any further. Placing the weapon on the mantle behind him, Huesyth held Bec’s twitching, sweaty face still to observe his eyes as they had dilated dramatically. He pressed the palm of his hand against the empath’s forehead and felt nothing but heat pouring off of him. The shaking began to slow as Huesyth held Bec’s face in his hands, bumping their foreheads together gently as Bec fell deathly still even with the bleeding.

“Shhh, lovely. It’s alright,” Huesyth whispered. He pulled back, remembering the other man in the room and retrieving the gun again as he calmly addressed Gideon. “He's had a mild seizure.”

“That... doesn't seem to bother you,” Gideon replied.

“It does but, as I said, it was mild,” Gideon shrugged in agreement. Huesyth placed the gun at the other end of the table before he took his seat in front of it. “Are you the man who claimed to be the Chesapeake Ripper?”

“Why do you say ‘claimed’?”

“Because you're not. You know you're not and you don't know much more about who you are beyond that.”

Gideon was struck silent by that assessment but managed to ask. “Are you The Ripper?”

“A terrible thing... to have your identity taken from you.”

“Well, I'm taking it back, one piece at a time. You should see the pieces I got out of my psychiatrist.”

Obviously, a way of fronting but Huesyth continued. “Alana Bloom was one of your psychiatrists, too. Is that right?”

“Yes. Dr. Bloom.”

Huesyth gazed over at Bec. The empath was standing almost statue-like, his eyes had slid shut and the flow of blood had slowed as sweat beaded on his face. Looking back to the other killer, Huesyth said smoothly. “I can tell you where to find her.”

 

His first coherent thought that made its way through his fevered brain was about how much pain he was in. _Everything_ seemed to ache but none more than his head did. His eyes slid open, staring off into the middle distance before blinking slowly.

“Bec... can you hear me?” A voice asked.

For one fear-filled moment, he was sure that it was the snake coming back to torment him but he nodded anyway.

“Repeat after me,” The voice told. “‘My name is Bec Reyes’.”

He teetered slightly on his feet but he muttered through his disorientation. “My name is Bec Reyes.”

A face began to clear up through the haze, a face Bec was familiar with and Huesyth sighed softly. “Raise both of your arms.”

Shakily, Bec does as he was told with a little coaxing to raise them higher and higher until they were above his head. When the doctor was satisfied, he rested his hands on Bec’s arms and gently pushed them back down again.

“Although you may not feel like it, I need you to smile.”

Bec gave him a pointed look through his sweaty bangs but does as instructed, giving the doctor a joyless smile. Huesyth, on the other hand, smiled back with genuine relief. “Good. It wasn't a stroke,” He rested his hand on Bec’s shoulder and guided him to sit at the table. “You may have had a seizure. Tell me the last thing you remember.”

Bec looked at the spot where he was standing and saw the small puddle of drying blood pooled on the floor. Looking down at the shirt he was wearing and seeing it was sticking to his chest do to the blood seeping through the fabric. But he looked around the dining room and back at where he’d seen his nightmarish figment last.  
“I... I was with Garret Jacob Hobbs,” He answered through his heavy breaths.

Huesyth slid a hand onto his forehead and Bec immediately softened against his touch. The doctor pulled his hand back before addressing. “You have a fever. You were hallucinating. You thought he was alive. Here in the room with you.”

“ I saw him,” Bec grunted.

“He's a delusion disguising reality. Don't let that let you slip away,” Huesyth explained as he stood from the table. “You killed Garret Jacob Hobbs once. You can find a way to kill him again.”

The doctor moved around the table to shrug on his overcoat, the movement making Bec have to lean against the table.

“Where are you going?” Bec mumbled.

“Abel Gideon is still at large. He mutilated Dr. Chilton. They found him clinging to life. I'm worried about Alana.”

“Alana,” Bec repeated as he tried to stand but Huesyth came rushing back around the table to gently push him back down.

“No, no, no. Bec, you're in no state to go anywhere but the hospital. I'll call Jack and tell him where you are.”

Huesyth moved out of the room, probably to call Jack as he said. However, Bec gazed across the table at the car keys and his gun that the doctor had left on the table.

 

It wasn’t hard to find him once Bec arrived at Alana’s house. The trek through the snow was probably the hardest part as every step threatened to pull him to his knees but once he spotted the killer, he unclipped his gun from its holster. Yanking it out of his belt as he wheezed from the cold biting at his throat. His legs wobbled as he aimed the gun at the back of the killer’s head.

Except, the gun lowered slowly and Bec stumbled up to stand by Gideon’s side as he stared into the lit window at Alana moving about her home office.

“I don't know if I will ever be myself again,” The killer by his side began. “I don't know if I've got any self left over. I spent so long thinking I was him, it's gotten really hard to remember who I was when I wasn't him.”

Bec’s gaze was pulled over to Gideon and he mumbled. “Who are you now?”

When the killer turned to look at the empath, Hobbs stared into him. “Now I'm you.”

Bec flinched at the comparison, a bead of sweat running down his face to mingle with the sticky blood caked on his face from his nosebleed.

“We're both here. Just those kind of people that shouldn't be in a relationship. You and I are already committed. It's hard to be with another person when you... can't get out of your own head.”

Bec muttered, more to himself than to the killer by his side. “I want to get out.”

“Yeah, well, we all want things that we can't have. But if I kill her as he would kill her then maybe I could understand him better.”

The killer looked over at Bec again and Hobbs added with Gideon’s voice. “I wonder if then you would finally understand what you've become.”

Bec stared back at him and for a moment, the fog in his head seemed to lift along with his gun which he aimed at the killer. The sound of the gunshot rattled around in his head long after the weapon had gone off and Gideon had fallen back into the snow piled up around him. The weight was crushing and his head pounded as he was dragged to his knees in front of the body. Suddenly, consciousness left him and he too slipped into the snow.

 

Huesyth stared at the gold liquid still remaining in the glass Jack had poured for him. The older agent in question was glaring daggers into the pictures of Abel Gideon that were pinned to the corkboard in his office.

“They will be sewing up Dr. Chilton until the morning... That is if he makes it through the night.”

The older agent turned to the doctor and Huesyth continued. “At least Bec remains in one piece... for now,” Jack returned to his desk and refilled Huesyth’s glass for him. “His temperature is 105. White blood cell count is twice normal and they still can't identify the source of his infection.”

“They will,” Jack said surely as he took his seat behind the desk.

“You seem confident.”

“I am. Even with a temperature of 105 degrees, Bec was able to bring Gideon down. I told you, he'll be fine.”

Huesyth had to hesitate. Jack’s ignorance grating on the thin ice he was already walking on with the doctor. “Jack... I would recommend you suspend his license to carry firearms.”

Jack glanced at Huesyth, taking in the seriousness of the recommendation. “You and I are just gonna have to have a difference of opinion about who Bec is, Doctor.”

“I know who Bec is,” Huesyth insisted. “Bec knows who he is.”

“Yes,” Jack nodded.

“But our experiences shape us, Jack. How is this experience going to shape Bec?”

 

She held her hand over her mouth in preparation for the tears that would no doubt try to force themselves out of her eyes at the sight of her unconscious brother hooked up to the many beeping monitors and the dripping IV. Her other hand was gripping Bec’s, probably too tightly but at least that way she could feel the gentle pulse to ensure her that he was still alive.

The door slid open behind her and she only had to cast a quick look over her shoulder for her to identify her own tired wife with a sleeping five-year-old in her arms. Bianca returned to her seat next to Sofia with a sigh.

“The doctor said that they’ll be running a few more tests but-” Bianca began but Sofia cut her off before she could finish. “They have no idea what’s wrong with him.”

Her wife gave another soft sigh, running a hand through their daughter’s dark hair when she began to stir and settle again. “They’re doing all they can, baby.”

Sofia shook her head. “I hounded him for days. _Days_ , Bianca, and it still took him nearly dying to get him here... I could’ve done more.”

“This is _not_ your fault,” Bianca insisted.

Finally, a sob dragged itself from Sofia’s throat and she crumbled, pulling her hand from Bec’s so she could curl up against Bianca’s side and cry into her neck. Bianca rested her cheek against the top of her wife’s head, nuzzling her gently. “He’ll be okay, Sof. Everything is gonna be fine.”

A knock came from the door, both of their heads whipping up as another woman entered into the doorway, saw the others in there and paused. “ _Oh_ , I, uh... I’m so sorry. I-I didn’t know anyone else was in here.”

The lady doctor that Bec had introduced Sofia to barely a day ago. She immediately backed out of the room again but Sofia jumped up from her chair to chase after her before she could get out sight.

“Wait! Uh, Dr. Bloom!” Sofia called after her and the other woman halted to turn back to her, barely a few feet down the hospital hall.

Sofia wiped the tears from her eyes as she addressed the doctor. “Bec is, uh… he’ll be okay. The doctors are trying to figure out what’s wrong with him.”

Tension seemed to melt from her shoulders, giving a sigh of relief. “Thank god. Do they have any ideas what it might be?”

Sofia shook her head quickly. “No. No, they don’t. Can, um… can I ask you a question about Bec?”

Bloom nodded. “Of course.”

Sofia scrubbed at the tears still staining her face. “Do you by any chance… know the name of the therapist that he’s been talking to since he joined the FBI?”

 

“Bec Reyes is troubled,” Huesyth began, staring off out the window and the sun peeking through the trees outside of Bedelia’s home.

“And that troubles you?” The blonde woman asked. “Beyond a professional concern for a patient?”

“I see his madness and I want to contain it like an oil spill.”

“Oil is valuable. What value does Bec Reyes's madness have for you?”

He finally matched eyes with her. “You're suggesting I'm more fascinated with the madness than the man?”

“Are you?” Bedelia asked simply.

“No,” Bedelia studied the simplicity of Huesyth's reply, her silence coaxing a longer answer. “He realized early on that he saw things differently than other people. _Felt_ things differently.”

“So did you.”

“I see myself in Bec.”

She crossed her legs as she addressed him again. “Do you see yourself in his madness?”

Huesyth shrugged slightly. “Madness can be a medicine for the modern world. You take it in moderation, it's beneficial.”

“You _overdose_ and it can have unfortunate side effects.”

 _Like nosebleeds, hallucinations, loss of time, and mild seizures,_ Huesyth’s brain supplied him but he pushed it back. “Side effects can be temporary. They can be a boost to our psychological immune systems to help fight the existential crises of normal life.”

Bedelia tipped her head slightly to the side. “Bec Reyes does not present you with problems from normal life.”

“No. He doesn't.”

“What does he present you with?”

Huesyth paused, for once thinking longer about his answer. Even he didn’t know a clear one. “The opportunity for something greater.”

A simpler answer than either of the doctors were expecting but Bedelia continued. “He is still your patient, Huesyth. Where Bec Reyes is concerned, if you feel the impulse to step forward, you must force yourself to take a step back.”

“And just watch him lose his mind?” Huesyth asked.

“Sometimes all we can do is watch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NBC's Hannibal, nor its script and characters, and I don't make any money off of this fic. I rewrote it for me and a friend of mine purely for fun as a way to explore the events but with our original characters and just decided to start posting it.
> 
> New chapter every Wednesday!!


	12. “Relevés”

He tugged along the wheeled IV stand that led into his arm, putting his weight on it when he felt waves of dizziness hit him. That hospital’s attire was far more comfortable than the scratchy thin cloth from the neurologist’s and came with a dark robe to block out the chill of the linoleum of the building.

The hyperbaric chamber that he had finally tracked down was the only thing casting light in the room and within the tube, Georgia smiled back at him. Her skin, though still healing and patchy, had real flesh color to it and the dark muck was washed out of her blonde hair.

She laid on her side and when she noticed him enter, propped her head up on her hand.

“Hi,” She whispered but the sound didn’t make it to Bec’s ears.

He reached down to the control panel on the tube, pressing the intercom system so he could talk to her. “You look better.”  
“Do I look alive?” She joked with a breathy chuckle.

He nodded and answered truthfully. “You look pretty.”

Bashful at the compliment, she self-consciously brushed a bit of her hair behind her ear. “Must be all the oxygen. You’re looking pretty too now.”

They share a laugh before Georgia cocked her head slightly and asked. “They say what's wrong with you?”

“No. So far it’s just been the fever,” The empath explained. “They're trying to find out what else.”

“They won't find anything,” Georgia declared surely without missing a beat. “They'll keep looking, keep taking tests, keep giving false diagnoses, bad meds. But they won't find out what's wrong. They'll just know that you're wrong. I hope you have good insurance.”

“I hope so too,” Bec mumbled.

Georgia shrugged slightly before offering. “They're going to give me shock treatment. Electroconvulsive Therapy is what it's called. Shock treatment sounds nicer or at least more honest.”

Bec nodded and rested his hands on the edge of the tube’s glass. “People who have what you have can recover with shock treatment.”

Pausing momentarily, Georgia gave the empath a soft look. “You know how many times I've been told I could recover with treatment? They said I might remember what I did. But I don't want to remember.”

“You know what you did, Georgia.”

“But I don't remember it. It feels more like a horrible dream where I killed my friend.”

“You dream about killing anybody else?” Bec asked.

“I dream you killed that doctor...” Georgia revealed. “But I couldn't see your face.”

He was shooed back to his own room after a while and he was sure that he’d sleep through the night, if fitfully but he stirred in his hospital bed when a different aroma hit him. Bec’s eyes slid open and through the blur, he saw a figure move at the foot of his bed. For once, he could recognize him.

“Smells delicious,” Bec commented.

Huesyth popped the lids off the two Tupperware containers that he brought with him, allowing a puff of steam to escape. “Silkie chicken in a broth. A black-boned bird prized in China for its medicinal values since the seventh century. Wolfberries, ginseng, ginger, red dates, and star anise.”

The empath pushed himself up into a sitting position and raised a questioning eyebrow at the doctor. “Basically you made me chicken soup?”

The doctor paused and offered the younger man a supportive smile. “Yes.”

Bec pulled himself out of his bed with a soft chuckle, walking himself over to the table with his IV stand that Huesyth was setting up their meals at. They were silhouetted by the light coming through the window and the empath felt a strange sense of deja vu at the setup.

“The nurses tell me you've been wandering, Bec,” Huesyth began as he poured the empath a drink from his thermos.

He felt like a kid getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar but Bec couldn’t make himself feel sorry about it. If he remained in that hospital room any longer, staring at the sterile white walls in the low light, he was bound to go stir crazy. “I was awake... and, uh, wandering with... purpose and good intentions.”

“Visiting that unfortunate young woman suffering from delusions?”

“She's my support group,” Bec deadpanned as shoved another spoonful of the soup into his mouth.

“And I hope you're hers. Nothing more isolating than mental illness.”

Bec shrugged before slowly he lowered his spoon with a sigh, leaning back in his chair. “The hallucinations, the nosebleeds, the, um, loss of time, sleepwalking... Could that have all just been the fever?”

Huesyth considered his response for a moment before answering. “Fevers can be symptoms of dementia. Dementia can be a symptom of many things happening in your body or mind that can no longer be ignored, Bec.”

The empath nodded along in understanding. “Does Jack know?”

“That this could be more than a fever? No. I haven't told him.”

“S-Shouldn't you?” Bec asked, uncertain of what Huesyth was trying to do.

“Not until we know for certain,” Huesyth explained. “What we must do now is continue to support and monitor your recovery. This young woman you were visiting, how's her recovery?”

With a soft sigh, Bec sipped at his drink. “I don't think she wants to recover. She’s afraid to remember what she did.”

The doctor averted his eyes, staring off beyond the younger man’s shoulder before softly saying. “Can't say I blame her.”

 

Staring ahead at his doctor, mouth agape in quiet shock, Bec shook the surprise out of his brain before meekly asking. “Could… Could you, um, repeat that, Doctor?”

“You’re pregnant, Mr. Reyes,” She repeated, everything about her expression was pitying. “It’s a lot more common than people think.”

There’s an ache forming in his chest on top of the physical pain he was in. His tongue so heavy in his mouth that he couldn’t even form a coherent sentence despite the hundreds of questions that shot through his mind.

“You’re very early along. A week or two in the least.”

Bec stammered slightly, searching for the words he wanted to say and finally asked the woman. “Everything that happened to me… That’s _been_ happening with the fever, ha-has it hurt the baby?”

She hesitated momentarily but tried to soothe. “It certainly hasn’t helped but like I said it’s far too early to tell anything definitively. I would like you to stay a few more days for more testing. If we can figure out the reason for your fever, we might be able to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“And what if it does?” Bec questioned. “Happen again, I mean. Could I lose my baby?”

Her face faltered but she gave another clinical answer. “We’re doing everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen, Mr. Reyes.”

It was a meaningless answer that made Bec want to scream at the walls because it offered no comfort to the fact that he was downing aspirin like candy, bleeding pints of blood out of nose every other day, and walking off into the woods. A wave of nausea came over him and he held his head in his hands.

But then came a series of quick knocks at his hospital room door, the looks of both he and his doctor whipped around to find a man with FBI splayed across the breast pocket of his jacket.

“Agent Reyes?” He asked to which Bec nodded. “Special Agent Crawford has requested your presence downstairs.”

The empath gave an emotionless chuckle, shaking his head slightly at the worst timing in the world. He pulled himself up off his bed and dragged himself along with his IV stand despite his doctor’s wishes for him not to move around so much.

He was let into the room by one of the agents and the first thing that hit him was the smell of burning skin and melted sheets. The high tech chamber that Georgia was kept in was scorched from the inside out and they pulled out the inner tray with a charred body curled in on itself.

Completely dumbfounded, Bec moved to stand behind Jack as the older agent began speaking. “Hospital speculates that it was a short circuit that ignited the fire.”

“The unit looks well maintained,” Jimmy said, looking over the burnt out chamber and snapping another picture. “There’s no exposed wiring.”

It seemed everyone was trying to each spring the worst news on him all at the same time. He was still reeling from the fact he had just learned he was _pregnant_ barely five minutes earlier and now he was wracked by the overwhelming sadness of Georgia’s violent death.

“Horrible way to die,” Bec mumbled, it was all he could really muster.

“There was a kid in Italy who was in one of these things,” Jimmy retold with a slight cringe. “A spark of static electricity from his pajamas set it off. Two cubic yards of oxygen suddenly became two cubic yards of fire.”

“Is it possible that she set the fire herself?” Jack asked.

Bec was disturbed by the thought. A thought that Brian found evidence to support when he lifted up a blackened anti-static wrist strap from the chamber. “She wasn't wearing her grounding bracelet, which prevents the build-up of static electricity. She must’ve taken it off.”

“Suicide by immolation?” Bec wondered aloud.

“She was facing two murder charges,” Jack reminded as if that cleared everything up but he hadn’t spoken with her. He hadn’t sat down with her on a level playing field and listened to her say that it wasn’t prison time that she was scared of but remembering the murders themselves.

Quickly, the empath shook his head. “No. She wasn't suicidal, Jack. Sh-she was sick. I was here. I spoke to her.”

That earned him odd looks from Brian and Jack, who turned back to the younger man. “Why did you speak with her?”

“Because I know how she felt.”

Jack shuffled on his feet, speaking in simple terms so that Bec felt even more talked down to than he already did. “She's a murder suspect. She tried to kill you. You trying to be her friend impacts the case against her.”

The younger man gave a breathy scoff as his eyes went back to the charred body from the tube. “Well, the case against her doesn't really matter anymore, does it, Jack?”

 

Stirring again from his sleep, his eyes slid open to find Georgia standing a few feet away from his bed at his Wolftrap home. She appeared just as decayed as she had the night Bec found her under his bed and a melancholy expression pulled at her face.

Moving in a jerky, stop motion fashion, Georgia turned away from him as he pulled himself out of bed. Once she reached the front door, she peered back over her shoulder as if waiting for him to follow. Hesitantly, he did. Moving out onto the front porch as he pulled on a jacket to find the dead woman standing a few feet into his yard.

“See?” She asked, her voice a harsh croak before it lowered to a whisper. “ _See?_ ”

With growing fear, Bec watched, flinching as immense antlers impaled Georgia from behind, her back arching from the pain. As if from the heat of the antlers, Georgia’s body burst into roaring flames, disappearing in a whoosh of fire to reveal the coil of the black snake’s body. As the flames died around it, it stared into the empath with penetrating eyes.

“ **And now it seems, my dear, you burn for two.** ”

He woke with a start, staring up at the ceiling of his hospital room with sweat drying on his skin.

 

“What are you doing here?” Jack asked, barely looking up from the papers he was organizing on his desk when the empath entered.

“I checked myself out of the hospital,” Bec answered quickly but before he could explain himself further, the older agent stopped him.

“Well, check yourself back in,” Jack stated.

Bec replied firmly. “The fever broke.”

“I don’t _care-_ ” “Georgia Madchen didn't commit suicide, and whatever happened to her wasn't an accident.”

But the older agent was far passed listening to Bec’s ramblings, putting on his best paternal figure voice in order to declare. “I'm gonna have Z come down here and stick a thermometer in you, and if you've got a temperature higher than 99…”

“She was _murdered_ , Jack,” Bec snapped at the older man.

With a defeated sigh, Jack dropped the paper he was reading back on his desk, putting his hands on his hips. “By who?”

“By whoever killed Dr. Sutcliffe.”

Jack scoffed softly through his nose. “His blood was all over Georgia Madchen. Her DNA was all over him.”

But Bec shot back at him. “She told me there was somebody else there. She couldn't see his face.”

“There _was_ somebody else there. It was Dr. Sutcliffe. She couldn't see his face because she _cut it in half!_ ” Jack reminded as he circled around his desk to stand more clearly before the empath.

“Bec, I understand. You're looking for an explanation, an explanation that makes all of this okay.”

“ _No!_ No, no, no. I don't. That is not what I want,” Bec snapped when Jack tried to speak over him, purposely recoiling as the older man approached. His defenses were quickly building themselves higher and higher. “Listen, something went wrong, and we will never know what that is, but for all the doctors she saw, for all of the help she received, she was fighting that wrong alone.”

“There is _nothing_ you can do about that,” The older agent said.

“All her adult life this woman was misunderstood, and what I _can_ do is make sure that her death isn't misunderstood,” The empath declared. “She _didn't_ kill herself... And this wasn't an accident.”

The shouting was getting them nowhere and both of the men knew it. But the older agent could see the determination in the younger man’s eyes. Instead of arguing with the headstrong empath, Jack allowed Bec to accompany him to the morgue when the scientists finished their autopsy.

“So, we dismantled the oxygen chamber... see if anyone tampered with the wiring, or even like a short circuit. But nothing,” Brian explained as he rolled out the charred body of Georgia from the body drawers.

“So what sparked the fire?” Jack questioned.

“Inconclusive, but…” Brian started before Jimmy cut in with a wave of his hand.

“Not conclusively inconclusive. Found this,” Jimmy handed over a container holding a bit of melted plastic. “Thought it might've been part of the bed or monitoring equipment, but mass spectrometer said it was celluloid plastic. They don't use plastic in those things.”

“Right, right. It generates, uh, static electricity,” Bec agreed.

Brian motioned to the container in Jack’s hand. “Her hair was melted right in there. It's preserved like it was in amber.”

In that moment, Bec remembered the way she shyly smiled at him, brushing a loose piece of hair behind her ear, before asking the scientists. “Could it have been a plastic comb?”

At the inquiry, Jimmy cocked his head slightly. “Well, static charge from a plastic comb in a highly oxygenated environment would be a powerful accelerant.”

“Anything combustible in there would combust,” Brian added.

Bec glanced at the melted plastic in Jack's hand and pointed to it. “You're holding the murder weapon.”

“Or whatever she used to kill herself, yeah?” Jack retorted.

Finally, he had enough of that theory. Bec made a frustrated scoff before he yanked open one of the morgue drawers despite Jack and the scientists' refusals trying to stop him. He pulled out the now pale, splotchy body of his old neurologist. The top part of his head dangling from his jaw from the strips of muscle and skin.

“Whoever killed Sutcliffe wanted to kill him how Georgia Madchen killed her victim, but... but not exactly how. Correct?” He raised an eyebrow at Brian and the scientist shrugged.

He retorted. “Georgia Madchen carved up her victim's face. Sutcliffe was, uh, nearly decapitated at the jaw. I mean…”

“So she went _further_ the second time,” Jack claimed which made Bec gave him a pointed glare. “Serial killers often do that.”

“She was _copied_ ,” Bec retorted harshly. “Like, uh, whoever killed Marissa Schuur and Cassie Boyle wanted to _copy_ how Garret Jacob Hobbs killed his victims.”

Flashing through his mind, Marissa's body impaled on antlers like an ornament in the dark recesses of Hobbs’ cabin. Then, Cassie skewered on a severed stag head, left naked on display in the middle of an open field as crows pecked at her flesh. It all seemed to click into place but at the same time, some of the pieces were missing. An incomplete puzzle of the copycat’s face.

He never recreated the murders exactly, always adding his own cruel twist to it but he left enough that the FBI could blame someone else.

Quietly, Bec finished. “...But not exactly how.”

“Wait a minute,” Jack began, holding his hands up as if that would stop the constant flow of thoughts in Bec’s head. “Are you saying that Dr. Sutcliffe was killed by Garret Jacob Hobbs' copycat?”

“So was Georgia Madchen,” Bec nodded but he was slowly stepping back as his mind pulsed with pain. “Because he thinks she saw his face.”

“You said Nicholas Boyle was the copycat. His blood was on one of the victims. Nicholas Boyle is dead.”

The empath shook his head. “Well, then he isn't the copycat.”

Obviously unconvinced, Jack narrowed his eyes at the sporadic empath.

 

“Could this be more than just a fever?” Jack asked and Huesyth raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “Bec is connecting murders that previously had no connections.”

“Beyond his involvement in the investigations?” Huesyth asked to which Jack agreed. “So you're wondering if the lines are blurring or if he's on to something.”

“I'm wondering all sorts of things,” Jack revealed with a shrug. There was a tenseness in the agent’s shoulders, something that was still tightening and threatening to snap. “What's Bec's relationship with Abigail Hobbs right now?”

At the mention of the young Hobbs, Huesyth sat up in his office chair and cleared his throat. “You think he's protecting her.”

Jack averted his eyes, almost shamefully for even suspecting the empath of something like that but it needed to be asked. “He has been ever since he shot her father. I just don't know from what.”

“I can't imagine he would hide anything criminal from you. I've only ever known Bec as a man striving to be his best self.”

“You haven't known him that long.”

The doctor had to fight off the impulse to recoil at the prospect of Jack assuming that Huesyth didn’t have his claws firmly dug into the empath’s body. That he didn’t know far more intimate details of Bec’s life than Jack ever could. It was an insulting comment.

But Jack continued seamlessly. “But we both know him well enough to know he hasn't been himself.”

“He needs our support, whether or not mental illness is involved,” Huesyth offered.

“Mental illness…” Jack softly repeated, disbelieving. “Is it really mental illness, Doctor, or is it just that his mind works so differently from most people's that we don't know what else to call it?”

Huesyth sighed. “There are days when even Bec doesn't understand his own thinking.”

 

For once, the common room at Abigail’s hospital was buzzing with other nurses and patients so Abigail had them sit away from the others, near the greenhouse atrium so that they could talk privately. She looked better than ever. Healthy and alive but there was a weight beneath her eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping well.

Abigail started in a hushed tone. “You told me that killing someone was the ugliest thing in the world.”

“One of them,” Bec said with only slight hesitation.

Abigail nodded slightly, eyes darting around the floor before she tucked her hands under her chin, resting her head there. “I finally get it. I thought there was something wrong with me because I didn't feel ugly when I killed Nick Boyle. I felt good. That's why it was so easy to lie about it.”

Carefully, Bec studied her face, looking for anything that would lead to the conclusion of ‘killer’ but he found nothing. How could she have slipped through his empathy so well? Playing the roles of both victim and monster in order to survive. “Like you didn't do anything wrong.”

“Did it feel like you did something wrong when you killed my dad?” Abigail asked with a cocked eyebrow.

It sounded like more of a rhetorical question but Bec wasn’t in the mood to give her a rhetorical answer. Her expression was clue enough that she already knew how she thought he would answer.

But Abigail didn’t because Bec didn’t even know until she asked. Hesitantly, the empath shook his head. “I felt terrified. And then... I felt powerful.”

Minutely, Abigail’s expression changed, a tiny flash of surprise that he finally admitted it to himself. He surprised himself as well.

“It felt good... to get to end it. To stop it all,” The Hobbs girl expressed as Bec nodded before she sighed. It was like she was disgusted with herself. “I thought I got away from him.”

“Oh, I don't think either of us have gotten away from your father.”

With her mouth in a thin line, Abigail shook her head in frustration before gritting out. “I wish I'd killed him. For killing my mom. For killing all those girls. For making me…”

Her voice trailed off. Some secrets were better left in the dark, close to her chest where they can’t hurt her but Bec pressed on. “Making you what, Abigail?”

“ _Part of it_ . Part of _any_ of it,” She blurted out. Abigail looked out over the fellow patients in the common room she was forced to call her home, scanning each of the faces. It must have felt like a cage, whether it was meant to keep her in or everyone else out was still up for debate. “This wasn't supposed to be my life. It feels like my dad's still out there.”

“In a way, he is,” Bec muttered.

Her brow furrowed at him. “You mean the copycat.”

“I think I can catch him,” Bec nodded slightly, reaching out to cup Abigail’s hands in his own. He could feel the warmth in them, her steady pulse beneath his fingers. “But I'm gonna need your help.”

She looked up to match his eyes, squeezing his hands more firmly before nodding.

 

A gentle wind blew the remaining leaves of the trees outside Bedelia’s home, the large floor to ceiling windows of her home office that allowed the afternoon light to pour in. All was quiet until the distinct click of heels on the wooden floors.

From behind him, the blonde therapist finally spoke. “An agent from the FBI came to see me. He asked me questions about your relationship with Bec Reyes.”

With slight surprise, Huesyth turned to face the woman. He had just spoken to the agent yesterday and he was sure that he’d been covering his distaste for the older agent well. “Jack Crawford was here?”

Bedelia hummed softly in agreement as she approached. “He had enough doubt in whatever it is you told him about your patient to feel the need to verify.”

Huesyth wouldn’t admit that he was starting to feel the weight of what she was telling him. “He believes Abigail Hobbs was involved in her father's crimes, and he suspects Bec is protecting her.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “And evidently he suspects you are protecting Bec. Are you?”

“Are you asking as my psychiatrist?” Huesyth questioned.

Momentarily, Bedelia paused but answered honestly. “I'm stepping out of my role as your psychiatrist and I'm speaking to you now as your colleague,” Bedelia sat down on one of the cushioned seats before addressing him again. “Whatever you're doing with Bec Reyes, _stop._ ”

“Bec needs my help,” Huesyth said as he averted eyes from her.

“You've crossed professional lines,” Bedelia accused.

“By making a friend?”

Bedelia scoffed at the term. “We’ve established you two have already passed the line of mere ‘friends’. You cannot function as an agent of intimacy for a man who is disconnected from the concept as a man who is disconnected from the concept.”

“I'm protecting Bec from influence,” The taller man corrected. “He has flaws in his intuitive beliefs about what makes him who he is. I'm trying to help him understand.”

“You may not be able to,” Bedelia replied simply.

He sighed softly, beginning to pace around the room. “I'm not comfortable telling Bec that my very best attempts to help him may fail and that my loyalty to him and his treatment could be compromised.”

“Then tell him something else,” Bedelia explained. Always the doctor with the half-truths and barely disguised fibs to cushion the soul-crushing truth of the inevitable. “Agent Crawford also asked me about my attack.”

It seemed the tables turned, Huesyth being the one to ask Bedelia the questions now. “I see. What did you tell him?”

It was her time to look away from him. “Half-truths. That a violent patient swallowed his tongue while he was attacking me. I didn't tell him how or why or who was responsible.”

Huesyth nodded in understanding before retorting. “You protect your patient from Jack Crawford, but I can't protect mine?”

“Not anymore. Even the very best psychiatrists have an inherent limitation to their professional abilities. You may find that difficult to accept.”

“You're right. It is,” Huesyth added, going back to gazing out the window.

“You have to maintain boundaries, Huesyth.”

“When the pressures of my personal and professional relationships with Bec grow too great, I assure you... I'll find a way to relieve them.”

 

Leaning forward in his chair with his elbows resting on his knees, Bec kept his eyes down. Not really helping his case as he tried to defend his stability. “I’m much better now. I feel clearer. It had to be the fever,” He looked up, gauging the doctor’s reaction. “I am _finally_ thinking clearly about the copycat.”

“The murders you're attributing to the copycat have suspects whose DNA was found on the victims,” Huesyth reminded.

Bec scoffed and leaned back in his chair. “So what?”

Curiously, Huesyth stared at the empath, before continuing calmly. “You're choosing to ignore that?”

“Both of those suspects are _dead_ ,” Bec argued as he pulled himself up to begin his pace around the office. “I'm choosing to factor that into my psychological profile of a killer. Georgia Madchen followed me to Sutcliffe's office, she witnessed his murder, she saw the copycat.”

“Why not kill her then and there?” Huesyth asked.

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants. “Well, maybe h-he didn't have the time. You know, she was an unreliable witness, so that bought him time.”

“So he framed her for the murder?”

The empath paused, gazing out the window. “But he wasn't planning on framing her. He was planning on framing me.”

Huesyth raised an eyebrow. “You believe this is personal?”

The empath moved back to stand next to his vacant chair. “If it wasn't before, it is now. This could be someone at the Bureau, someone in the police department, someone who knows the crimes and has access to the investigations.”

“Someone like you?”

Bec briefly considered it but dismissed the notion, shaking his head at the accusation as he took steps toward the doctor. “There will be evidence. I found a pattern and now I'm gonna reconstruct his thinking.”

“How do you intend to do that?” Huesyth asked up at the younger man.

“By taking Abigail back to Minnesota. Start where the copycat started when he called Garret Jacob Hobbs-” “Bec, this is venturing into the paranoid,” Huesyth quickly cut in. “I can't allow you to pull Abigail into your delusion.”

“This _isn't_ a delusion, Huesyth. I'm not hallucinating. I haven't lost time. I am awake and this is _real._ ”

The frustrated anger bubbling inside him from not being believed was starting to get the best of him. Everywhere he turned had someone looking at him like he was crazy. His sister, his boss, and now even his own lover. With a huff, Bec stepped away from the doctor again, leaving Huesyth with a no doubt worried expression but before he could storm out, the empath paused.

 _This is your chance_ , Bec thought. _He deserves to know. It’s his child too._

“Um, Huesyth?” Bec started.

The doctor turned to him, raising a curious eyebrow at his lover. But the empath’s next words caught in his throat under Huesyth’s gaze, something in him hissing for him to stay silent. That last bit of untrusting nature rearing its ugly head again.

In the moment, the only thing his mind could conjure up was a meek. “Thank you… for everything these last few months. You’ve made all of this more bearable.”

The doctor’s expression softened, almost shifting to a sense of melancholy before shifting back. “Do not doubt that I have always had your best interests in mind, my dear.”

Huesyth reached out for Bec’s hand, pulling it up to gently press his lips to the empath’s knuckles.

 

Later that night, the office door swung open before he could even lift his hand to open it, Jack pushing his way inside and moving passed the doctor.

“Sorry to barge in on you, Doctor. Couldn't wait.” The older agent moved into the room as Huesyth swung the door shut behind him before turning to demand. “You want to tell me what the hell is going on between Bec Reyes and Abigail Hobbs?”

Slowly, Huesyth approached the frustrated man. “Bec has been a victim of _many_ unusual and irrational thoughts.”

“Has he acted on these thoughts?” Jack urged, quick and clipped.

“Not that I'm aware of or he's aware of, for that matter,” Huesyth calmly explained. “But he has experienced periods of lost time.”

“Yes, I've seen him confused at crime scenes. I've seen him disoriented.”

Huesyth theorized for Jack’s benefit. “He may have been confused because he was waking up. Might not have known where he was or how he got there.”

“Waking up?” Jack inquired.

“From a dissociated personality state,” Huesyth explained as if it was obvious. “He would appear perfectly normal and not remember a thing. But a fractured part of him would.”

“And how long have you been aware of this?”

The doctor defended. “He's only recently started to discuss these episodes.”

Jack chided harshly. “Well, unless recently means just before I walked into your office, you failed to mention any of this to me.”

“Because I was trying to determine if it was trauma and stress from the work he's doing for _you_ or mental illness,” Huesyth snapped back, a harshness he had been trying to keep at bay. “I thought it wise to be sure before making any kind of claim about Bec Reyes's sanity.”

It worked though, in making Jack’s mouth snap shut. The older agent sighed. “He's taken Abigail Hobbs. You have any idea where they might be going?”  
“No.”

“We have evidence that she was involved in some of her father's crimes,” Jack proclaimed. Huesyth appeared appropriately gobsmacked at the revelation, mostly because he didn’t think they would ever figure it out. “We just don't know how involved. Is it possible that Bec knew what Abigail was doing? Is that why he's protecting her?”

The doctor sighed heavily, looking down at the ground as Jack stared into him. “There's something you should hear.”

Moving to his desk, Huesyth pulled out a handheld recorder from the drawer and placed it on the desktop, pressing play.

His own voice came over the small speaker. “ _How did you feel seeing Marissa Schuur impaled in his antler room?_ ”

A pause before the sound of Bec’s voice answered softly. “ _Guilty._ ”

“ _Because you couldn't save her?_ ”

“ _Because I felt like I killed her-_ ”

Even then, Huesyth could remember the way Bec’s teeth clenched around his answers, the way he pushed into Huesyth’s hand as it carted through his hair. Everything seemed far simpler then and it was only a few months ago.

The doctor pressed stop on the recording before it could go any further, looking up to study Jack’s reaction.

“Where was Bec the night that Marissa Schuur was killed?” Jack asked, solemnly as in his mind he was beginning to think of the worst.

“He was supposed to be in his hotel room,” Huesyth explained, lying smoothly through his teeth. “I knocked on his door. He didn't answer.”

“We know he was in Dr. Sutcliffe's office the night that he was killed and Bec was the last person to visit Georgia Madchen before she died.”

Heavily, Huesyth sat down in his office chair as Jack began his mental unraveling, the older agent pausing before asking. “This dissociative personality state you say he goes into... whose personality is it?”

The doctor averted his eyes, staring absently across the room as he felt Jack’s eyes drilling into him. “He said he got so close to Garret Jacob Hobbs and what he had done... that he felt he was becoming him.”

“And now he has Hobbs' daughter.”

“Who Hobbs intended to kill,” Huesyth ended, filling in the last blank. “I'm so sorry, Jack.”

But the agent said nothing, giving one last sigh, as if to almost start scolding the doctor, before turning on his heel and leaving the office.

 

On the bumpy, backroad, the car hummed strong enough that Bec could feel the vibrations in his body. Despite the pounding in his head, he had to fight off the desire to down another two aspirins. His doctor had to explain to him that his usual not prescribed dosage was apparently not good for him or his child. It was weird how he _had_ to take care of himself in order to take care of someone else.

The rental car slowed to a stop outside the rustic cabin surrounded by barren trees and snow. Seemingly innocent if not for the tragedy that transpired inside. Abigail slipped out of the passenger side seat, shutting the door after her as she gazed up at the cabin in uncomfortable fear. They pressed on, however, entering the cabin and walking up into the antler room. They moved cautiously through the space as if the air itself was still filled with the screams of the victims.

“The copycat knew your father well enough to know about this place,” Bec explained as he peered around at the antlers protruding from the walls. It looked so much like how he imagined it in his mind, the ones that were consuming him.

“You felt like you knew my father,” Abigail muttered back to him over her shoulder. He nodded though she couldn’t see it as she pressed further into the room.

“I wanted to understand him,” Bec explained. “I felt like I _had_ to understand him.”

Abigail paused, running her fingertips over the point of one of the antlers before turning back suddenly to ask. “Do you ever hunt?”

“Not really. I fish sometimes,” The empath answered.

“It's the same thing, isn't it? One you stalk, the other you lure.”

It’s a simple distinction but it seemed to strike Bec deeper than he would’ve liked it too. Suddenly, every single question he had begun to fall into place and all it took was him asking one question. “Were you more a fisherman or a hunter?”

Abigail furrowed her brow slightly but shrugged. “My dad taught me how to hunt.”

“No, that's not what I'm asking,” Bec cut in firmly. Slowly, he stalked into the girl’s space, eclipsing the light that would’ve been shining on her from the only window in the loft. She backed up farther and farther into the room in an attempt to avoid him, closer to the antlers. “All those girls your dad killed... D-Did you _fish_ or did you _hunt_ , Abigail?”

The question hung heavy in the air between them until, finally, Abigail answered meekly. “I was the lure… Did Huesyth tell you?”

Profound disappointment and sadness overwhelmed him but he had to bury it. He shook his head, shocked about that being the first question she thought to ask. “No, he didn't.”

“He said you'd protect me,” Abigail whimpered, swallowing around the lump forming in her throat. “That you'd keep it a secret.”

Bec was at a loss for words, tears beginning to sting at his eyes. Carefully, he placed his hands on Abigail’s narrow shoulders and seemed to shrink beneath him. It was terrifying for him to look in her eyes again, to see all of his belief in her innocence completely gone. He finally met her gaze before picking her up to violently shove her back against the wall of antlers, running her through the chest. Her scream was choked out by the suddenness, eyes wide and mouth agape before Bec blinked and he was staring at the antlers on the wall, empty. No Abigail hanging from them.

“There is something wrong with you,” Abigail’s fear-filled voice came from behind him. “I think you're still sick.”

Bec was breathing heavy, disturbed by the images his brain conjured as a thin trail of blood ran over his lip from his nose.

“Jack Crawford was right about you,” Bec admitted, giving a joyless, wheeze of a laugh at how blind he’d been. He wanted to believe her, wanted to believe that she could still be good. That _he_ could still be good. “He knew. You killed Nick Boyle and you helped your father kill all of those girls.”

“No. I didn't help my dad kill anybody,” Abigail cried out, growing distraught with the accusations.

“No, you _lured_ them. You killed them. How many other people have you killed?”

Abigail shrank away from him as he approached her again, terrified. “Do you think I'm the copycat? You think I killed Marissa?”

“If you didn't kill her, Abigail, then somebody you know did,” Bec snapped but his vision was starting to blur, his voice straining.

She furrowed her brow at him and finally declared harshly. “Ever think that somebody could be you? You were there, you saw Marissa. You knew about this place and there is something _wrong_ with you.”

Her voice began to distort. Bec ran his hands over his sweaty face, confused by the images racing through his head and trying to massage them into coherency. A sound roared in to replace the sound of her voice and his eyes fluttered open again.

“Sir. I'm afraid you're gonna have to leave. We're preparing the cabin for the next passengers.”

Bec’s eyes flickered around to see the back of airplane seats, the roaring noise was simply the vacuum that one of the airline cleaning crew was using on the carpet in the aisle. He looked up at the attendant that had shaken him from his daze.

“I'm sorry. Where... Where are we?”

“Dulles international, Virginia,” She answered.

He motioned to the empty seat next to him. “Was there a young woman traveling with me?”

“All the other passengers are disembarked. It's just you, sir.”

Almost absentmindedly, he reached up to touch his face and realized the blood that was smeared across his face wasn’t there anymore.

 

The door downstairs rattled open, sending the sound echoing slightly throughout the rest of the house. The near emptiness of the home made it easy for Huesyth to track the hesitant approaching footsteps until a familiar form moved into the kitchen. Bright red coat and long dark giving a clear sign to who it was.

“Abigail?”

The girl startled upon hearing another voice but upon recognizing him, she sighed in relief and immediately ran into his arms for a hug.

“What are you doing here?” She asked breathlessly.

“I was so worried about you. Bec told me he was taking you to Minnesota, and I strongly advised against it,” He gently released her from the hug to look into Abigail’s eyes. “Where is Bec?”

“I left him at the cabin,” Abigail fretted. “I didn't feel safe with him so I left him... He knows everything.”

“So does Jack Crawford.”

Abigail’s mind was obviously spinning as everything she had tried to hide was coming back to bite her all at once, her options of survival narrowing down. “If I run, they'll catch me, won't they? You can't protect me anymore.”

“They'll arrest you when they find you, yes. And Bec.”

She looked up at him again, her big, blue eye wide with worry. “Did he kill Marissa?”

“They will believe he did,” Huesyth stated simply. “They will believe he killed others too.”

Abigail stared into Huesyth as the awareness began to dawn on her. Shakily, she continued, taking slow steps back from the doctor. “Bec always said whoever called the house that morning was the serial killer. Why did you really call?”

Seeing no reason to lie to the girl anymore, Huesyth straightened up and answered. “I wanted to warn your father that Bec Reyes was coming for him.”

“Why?” She whimpered.

“I was curious what would happen,” Huesyth explained simply. “I was curious what would happen when I killed Marissa. I was curious about what _you_ would do.”

A wave of nausea seemed to wash over Abigail but she pushed it down. “You wanted me to kill Nick Boyle.”

Huesyth cocked his head to the side slightly. “I was hoping. I wanted to see how much like your father you were.”

“Oh, my God,” Abigail breathed out.

“Nicholas Boyle is more important for you gutting him. He changed you, Abigail. That's more important than the life he clamored after.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, muttering through the distress that paralyzed her body. “How many people have you killed?”

Before answering, he approached her, slow and calm, reaching out to take hold of her hand and look her in the eye. “Many more than your father.”

A quiet tear streamed down her face and Huesyth lifted his other hand to caress her cheek, gently wiping the tear away. She mustered up the courage to dare ask. “Are you going to kill me?”

He shook his head slowly without taking his eyes off her. “I'm so sorry, Abigail. I couldn't protect you in this life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NBC's Hannibal, nor its script and characters, and I don't make any money off of this fic. I rewrote it for me and a friend of mine purely for fun as a way to explore the events but with our original characters and just decided to start posting it.
> 
> New chapter every Wednesday!!


	13. “Savoureux”

_ Moving cautiously through the forest, a rifle tucked under his arm for any sign of movement, Bec listened to the sounds of the woodland symphony. He saw movement in the trees up ahead, the moon shining through the leaves to reveal the silhouette of the snake’s large body coiled up on a branch, unsuspecting of the approaching threat. Raising the rifle to his shoulder to take aim at the snake’s body, Bec froze as the snake seemingly turned its eyes to face him before his finger tightened on the trigger. _

_ But the snake was gone, disappeared from sight seemingly within the blink of an eye. He chased after it in the same direction that he’d been going. But something dark moved against a tree’s base and what he thought were branches was actually a heavy rack of tall antlers protruding from the onyx skin of a skull-like head. Its bony but large body was hunched low against the ground to meld into the shadows of the forest floor. It’s head whipped around to face him as he stumbled into its view but as soon as Bec brought the rifle up to take a shot, the figure had disappeared. _

_ Shocked by the sight but determined, Bec pressed on to see what the figure was hunched over and found the trees around it were nearly painted with fresh blood, glittering in the low light. Bec stared in fixed horror as he observed the scene before he looked up to find the black, antlered figure towering over him, lunging at him _ until Bec woke with a jerk.

He was in his bed again, the light of dawn streaking through the windows, sweating and shaking as if he never left. His face was sticky and when he touched it came away red. Shakily, he pulled himself up into a sitting position, seeing that his pillowcase was also drying with a large pool of blood staining it.

Pushing back the covers so he could swing his legs over the side of the bed revealed his feet and calves were covered with dry mud. His eyes stung from the light assaulting them but he stumbled to his feet, his body protesting as he forced himself into the kitchen even with the snakes spazzing around in their terrariums at his odd behavior. Running the tap good and cold, Bec began nearly shoveling hands fulls of water into his mouth, some of the handfuls tasting metallic from the blood he was washing off in the process.

He straightened up, hands resting on the counter to hold himself steady and then, with sudden violence, he retched and hurled into the sink. Coughing and hacking up the last of the bile, he tried to straighten up again but lying in the sink was a gray, perfectly intact human ear. Bec stared, wide-eyed at the discovery before stumbling back from the sink in fear.

 

He sat on the steps of his porch, arms wrapped around himself as he shivered and stared into the ground. A car approached and he didn’t look up when its passenger stepped out and moved to stand in front of him. Slowly, his gaze moved up Huesyth’s body to land on his face, pinched with concern.

“I went to Minnesota,” Bec tried to explain but his words came out strained. “I took Abigail and we went back to Minnesota and... She didn't come back with me.”

Hesitantly, Huesyth held out his hand to the empath. “Show me.”

Bec stared at the offered hand, looked back up at Huesyth and then took it, allowing the taller man to pull him up to stand and usher him inside. The doctor sat him down in the living room and wrapped his outer coat around the empath’s shoulders. His shaking wasn’t from the cold though, they both knew that. Huesyth moved through the snake room, earning a few disgruntled snaps from Sunday and Saturday as passed them to enter the kitchen.

“I don't remember going to bed last night,” Bec mumbled from the other room behind him. Not really talking to Huesyth but more trying to make sense of it himself. “But... I must have. I- I don't know, maybe I fed the snakes, and- and then…”

“When was the last time you saw Abigail?” Huesyth asked as he stared into the sink at the lump of skin and cartilage that Bec had coughed up.

“I woke up, my feet were muddy-” “ _ Bec _ ,” Huesyth snapped, the empath’s head shooting up to face him. “When was the last time you saw Abigail?”

“Yesterday,” Bec answered. “At her father's cabin. I had... an episode. Uh, she said something was wrong with me. She was scared and ran away.”

He remembered the way she shook like a newborn fawn facing down a wolf. All of her sins revealed and laid bare as she was backed into a corner. But she was smart, turning tail and running.

Bec didn’t chase her. He knew he didn’t chase her.

Huesyth wasn’t as sure. “What happened? Why was she afraid?”

“I hallucinated that I killed her,” Bec revealed and Huesyth’s gaze immediately dropped to the floor. “But it wasn't real, Huesyth. I know it wasn't real. I-I couldn’t have killed her.”

Saddened, concerned, Huesyth turned his back to him to collect himself, no doubt still staring at the severed ear. He moved back into the living room to kneel beside Bec, running his hand over his face.

“Bec, we have to call Jack,” Huesyth solemnly asserted. “You can't run from this. It'll only be worse.”

“I didn’t kill her, Huesyth,” Bec tried again but the doctor laid a hand on the back of the empath’s.

“Bec, not now.” Slowly, Bec bowed his head and nodded numbly in confirmation to which Huesyth commanded softly, standing again. “Get dressed.”

 

FBI agents and local police swarmed his small home in no time at all. Huesyth waited patiently by the front door for Bec to return and opened it for them to step outside only to be met with Jack.

The older agent sighed when he caught sight of the empath, coming to a stop on the porch. “What are we gonna find in Minnesota, Bec?”

Bec searched for an answer but came up short, admitting. “I don't know.”

Jack studied the broken empath, turning to another agent. “Go ahead and process him.”

The agent and his partner moved behind Bec and though they didn’t cuff him immediately, they held onto his arm to walk him across the yard. One by one the three scientists picked up their gear and approached the house, Beverly holding the empath’s gaze until they both had to look away.

He’s marched across the yard and lead to an FBI vehicle. One of the agents opens the back door for him while the other tucks Bec’s head and pushes him inside, closing the door after him. He didn’t look back to see that his home was turned into a crime scene.

Little did he know that barely minutes after his leaving, another car pulled up and a woman stepped out, disregarding the police line and nearly reaching the porch before she was stopped by one of the agents.

“Ma’am, you can’t be here,” The agent tried to tell her and usher her away from the crime scene.

Sofia was about to chew the agent out but, at the same time, a familiar face emerged from the darkness of the front door of Bec’s home to hand off a box of evidence to a crime scene investigator.

“Oh, Agent Katz!” Sofia exclaimed, waving her hand to get the other woman’s attention.

Beverly raised a surprised eyebrow but quickly moved down the porch steps to gesture to the agent giving Sofia trouble. “Hey, I got her.”

The agent hesitantly walked off and Beverly lowered her voice to speak to the other woman. “You shouldn’t be here, Sofia.”

Forlornly, Sofia stared up at the house as more boxes of stuff were brought out. Looking away quickly so that she didn’t start getting angry, she explained. “Bec called me. He explained what’s going down and wanted me to get his snakes before they’re carted off.”

Beverly’s face softened in understanding but seemed to be fighting between humanity and professionalism before finally relenting. “Let me talk to my boss, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”

Sofia nodded quickly and Beverly moved back into the house. Left alone again, she sighed heavily and scratched at the back of her before a sudden and sharp “ _ What? _ ” came from inside the house. There was a scampering of footsteps in the house before a few curious faces stuck out the front door as if to make sure she was real. Sofia narrowed her eyes at the two men before another dark-skinned man shooed them off to step out onto the porch to meet her.

He looked her up and down, seeming far less impressed as the two men that looked out before. “Ms. Crow, you’re Bec’s sister?” The man asked.

Sofia nodded again. “Half-sister. He called me.” She cocked her head to the side slightly. “Are you Special Agent Crawford?”

“I am,” He answered.

Sofia commented as she stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets. “Bec has told me a lot about you.”

“I can’t imagine it was too many good things,” Crawford guessed in an attempt to lighten the mood but Sofia wasn’t laughing with him.

“No,” She responded coldly. “Not very many good things.”

Seemingly unaffected by the jab, Crawford motioned behind him back into the house. “Agent Katz told me you’re here to get your brother’s pets?”

“The snakes, yeah. They’re the closest thing he has to kids. I have tanks set up at my house for when he goes out of town for long periods of time.”

“Does he leave often?” Crawford questioned but Sofia could feel the conversation shifting to an interrogation.

She raised an eyebrow at the other man. “Can I get the snakes or not, Agent Crawford? Yes or no?”

He stared questioningly and Sofia defiantly held eye contact with the man until he nodded, moving back into the house with her following after him. Sofia hesitated as she entered the living room, watching the investigators go through Bec’s stuff. Until a hand that belonged to Beverly landed on her arm and guided her away. But Beverly was also pulled aside by Crawford when Sofia was let into the snake room.

Though they thought she couldn’t hear them, Sofia could make out Crawford telling Beverly to ‘get information’ out of the younger woman.

Ignoring the agents moving around her and the ones talking about her in the doorway, Sofia went to the two tanks against the wall with the door into the living room. Sliding out the carrier container from under Tuesday’s tank and setting it on top.

“Only one container for all of them?” Beverly asked as she moved to stand by Sofia’s side.

“No. Tuesday and Thursday are brothers from the same clutch so they’re good with traveling together,” Sofia explained as she unlocked and slid the lid off the top of Tuesday’s tank. She scooped up the excited banana colored snake and placing him into the container before moving over to Thursday’s. “They’re probably the nicest ones here.”

She snapped the clasps on the carrier container to make sure the snakes couldn’t leave but she didn’t expect either of them to try to escape.

“So, have you talked to Bec at all these last few days?” Beverly asked as she followed Sofia over to Wednesday’s tank against the far wall.

The skittish, brightly colored milk snake flinched when the shadow of Sofia’s hand passed over him and he burrowed back into his bedding. “He hasn’t talked to me since he checked himself out of the hospital.”

“Did he tell you he was going to do that?”

“No. But I’m sure he had a good reason considering that weird girl he found under his bed was killed in the same hospital.” Sofia dug Wednesday out of his bedding and slipped him into his carrying container, moving on to Monday.

“Did you notice anything about your brother that would suggest mental instability?”

“Isn’t that what his first screening detected that made him initially unfit to be an FBI agent? Isn’t that why he became a professor instead of an agent?” Then, under her breath, Sofia seethed. “Isn’t that why Agent Crawford should’ve left him the hell alone to begin with?”

The flamboyantly colored Okeetee corn snake let herself be scooped up and placed into her container, confusedly scenting the air when it didn’t seem to be Bec’s hand doing the moving but going willingly.

“I understand this must be very difficult for you-” “This is completely beyond ‘difficult’. Everyone seems to be convinced my brother is a goddamn  _ murderer _ .”

Beverly’s mouth clicked shut as Sofia snapped at her, but the younger woman turned to the next snake, Friday the timber rattlesnake. Coiled within himself in the corner of his tank and though he wasn’t rattling just yet that didn’t mean that the second he realized Sofia wasn’t Bec, he wouldn’t try to snap at her. Bec always assured her that he was surprisingly docile especially during winter months when he seemed to be more tired. But Sofia wasn’t very sure about that.

“Has Bec ever acted violently or sporadically?”

That question pulled a scoff from Sofia. “Have you seen the scars on him? He used to hurt himself more than he ever hurt anybody else. He’s not violent. He’s never been violent even while he was sleepwalking.”

Slowly, she managed to work her hands under Friday’s body and he relented his tight coil, allowing himself to be moved into his own container.

“Did Bec ever talk about Abigail Hobbs with you?”

“Few times. You know, I have no idea what happened to that Hobbs girl but if memory serves, she has a knack for running away from her problems.”

As they approached the next tank, Saturday hissed at Beverly’s unfamiliar face and Sofia tapped lightly on the glass of her tank. “Excuse me, missy.”

“Sofia, you do understand the gravity of your brother’s situation, right?”

Sofia paused to open the top of the king cobra’s tank, moving in to scoop her up and quickly move her into her carrier. She was given surprised looks from those investigators that didn’t expect a fully grown cobra to be taken from the tank so easily.

Clasping the container, Sofia looked back to the other woman. “I know all too well. But I also know he’s not… violent or volatile. Whatever his brain conjures up, he never acts on because he’s terrified of it.”

Finally, Sofia turned to the middle tank, the one she’d really been dreading as within it held the moodiest of the bunch. Sunday peered suspiciously around at the faces of the women and the investigators moving in and out of the room. He appeared thoroughly rattled from the number of people who didn’t help Sofia’s wariness due to the fact that he was known to lash out. He was the only one of them that wasn’t store-bought or from a professional breeder.

Sofia slid the lid off of his tank and Sunday immediately hissed at the intrusion of his space. His tongue flicked and, upon recognizing the smell of Sofia, he begrudgingly allowed Sofia to carefully pick him up. She moved him to his carrier but not before fiercely snapping at an agent that moved too close to them.

After the snakes were all in their containers, Sofia stacked the containers onto a portable hand trolley, tying them into place under the supervision of the agents. She was about to take her leave when Crawford stopped her on her way out the door.

“Ms. Crow, you know if you have any information about your brother that could help us-” “I’m gonna stop you there, Agent Crawford. My brother isn’t a killer. I’m not gonna make excuses for him not telling you things because I get pissed at him too when he doesn’t tell me things but he wasn’t keeping it from you to be malicious.”

Crawford paused as he observed the woman. “The evidence is stacking up against him. Now I wish things were different-”

“Oh, please, you’re treating him like all of the serial killers he caught for you,” She snapped.

“Your brother knew what he was getting into when he joined.”

“You have  _ no idea  _ how happy I was when they said he was too unstable to join the FBI as an agent. At least that way he wouldn’t have gotten into something he couldn’t handle. His empathy isn’t forgiving. It connects him to people sometimes without his control and that’s why he put up the social walls,” She motioned around with her arms. “With no one close, there’s no one to connect to and no one to hurt him. You, Agent Crawford, had him connected to serial killers, psychopaths, and  _ monsters _ … no wonder he snapped.”

In a fit of anger, she took the handle of the trolley and moved out onto the porch to escape the agent but Crawford watched from the door as she stomped off.

 

Standing in evidence processing at the B.A.U., Bec was stripped back down to his sleep shirt and boxers as he stood in the sterile white room atop a paper mat. Most of his items were already bagged in separate evidence containers on the table to his left where the scientists were working.

Staring straight forward, he hands his pants over to Jimmy, who began to dig through the separate pockets for any contents.

“Right rear pocket. A leather wallet containing 17 dollars cash,” Jimmy described to Brian who repeated what the first man said as he wrote them down. The older man bagged the item and set it aside.

The next pocket. “Right front pocket. One folding knife.”

He observed it carefully for evidence on the handle before also dropping it into its own bag. He hoped the staring didn’t mean that he actually found anything on it.

They finish bagging his things and in came a less than thrilled Beverly, who began processing his physical person by scraping under his nails with a small tool. He didn’t expect her to find anything until a dull red residue was scraped from under his nails, falling onto the white paper on the tabletop in front of them. They’ve both seen it enough to know exactly what it was. Dried blood.

Struggling with the situation, Beverly finally pulled away from the scraping. “I can't do the silent treatment. I can't pretend I don't know who you are and I can't pretend we both don't know what I'm finding under your nails.”

She looked up at him expectantly but Bec remained silent, in numb shock, so Beverly continued. “You called me once because you didn't trust yourself to know what was real. This blood is real, Bec.”

“I know,” Bec mumbled, barely audible.

“Do you have any idea how it got there?” Beverly asked gently.

With a slow shake of his head, Bec responded softly. “No. Not with certainty.”

“Certainty comes from the evidence. I didn't want to find any evidence on you. I wanted to be certain about who you are, but you can't even be certain with yourself.”

“Not anymore.”

“If you weren't certain with yourself, you shouldn't have been here. This is the FBI.”

“I know.” He finally met eyes with her, still warm and wanting to help despite all the evidence linking him to violence. But he could tell she was angry with him for keeping it all bottled up.  Hesitantly, Bec expressed. “I thought I would get better.”

“You always said you interpret the evidence, so do it, Bec.” She motioned to the flakes of blood in front of them. “Interpret the evidence.”

“According to the evidence…” Bec started but he was fighting off what he wanted versus what he actually thought. Finally, a whispered horrifying revelation. “I killed Abigail Hobbs.”

 

Later, he waited in a dark interrogation room in his newly issued orange jumpsuit, hands resting in his lap. After a while, the door clicks and in stepped Alana, looking as worse for wear as Bec probably did but for a different reason. She looked pale, her eyes ringed with red like she was rubbing at them.

She sat across the table from him silently, barely standing to see him like that so he began with a simple. “Hi.”

It drew her eyes up to him finally. Hoarse and soft, she responded. “Hi.”

“You're flushed. Have you been yelling?” Bec observed.

A tiny, one-shouldered shrug. “Screaming more like it.”

He nodded slightly. “I could use a good scream. I can feel one perched under my chin.”

“Let it out,” She offered.

“I'm afraid that if I started... I wouldn't be able to stop,” Bec explained but he shifted in his seat. “I'm surprised that Jack let you in here. Given the confusing tangle we briefly ended up in.”

“Jack doesn't know about any of that…  _ didn’t _ know,” She explained, self-consciously glancing to the two-way mirror taking up most of the wall on Bec’s right side.

He only gave a brief glance to the glass as well. Bec could clearly imagine the disappointment on Jack’s face on the other side of the mirror. He turned back to the woman, whispering. “Guess we dodged a bullet there, huh?”

But Alana swallowed heavily around her rough throat, tears beginning to form in the corners of her eyes. “I don't feel like I dodged a bullet... I feel wounded.”

She took a deep breath and slid the portfolio that she brought with her over so she could pick at the edges. “Your sister came after you were taken away to pick up your snakes. The on-scene investigators said that she chewed Jack out in your living room before leaving.”

A twitch of a smile at the image. “That sounds about right. I feel like she’s probably gonna punch me in the face the next time she sees me.” But he quickly corrected. “ _ If _ she sees me.”

She averted her eyes and Alana slid open the portfolio. “We have to do some tests. They'll all be the standard psychopathology tests.”

“I suppose you're gonna ask me to draw a clock while you're at it.” He meant it to be more of a joke but Alana confusedly furrowed her brow at him.

“Did Huesyth ask you to draw a clock?” She questioned.

She sounded confused which made a shiver work its way up Bec’s spine. But he didn’t let it affect him. “He said it was an exercise... to ground me in the present moment. A handle to help me hold on to reality.”

“Was the clock normal?” Alana asked.

“Would I be here if it wasn't?”

It seemingly raised Alana’s interest as she pulled out a pen and slip of paper, sliding them across the table to the empath. “Draw me a clock.”

As practiced, Bec took the pen and quickly began his sketch of the clock, a simple circle with twelve numbers and indicating hands. He flipped it around and slid it back to Alana. “You see? It's just a normal clock. Telling the time isn't my problem.”

But he watched Alana’s face look between him and the drawing with growing dread and Bec felt a sense of worry dawning on him as she stated. “I think it's the least of your problems.”

 

Bedelia sat silently across from Huesyth but he stared into the middle distance instead of making eye contact. But the blonde must have noticed the man’s eyes begin to brim with tears that he forced out.

Finally, Huesyth spoke. “Seems hard to find words today.” He paused, sighing softly as a tear began to roll down his cheek. “Despite the overwhelming evidence, I find myself searching for ways that Abigail could still be alive.”

“Grieving is an individual process with a universal goal. The truest examination of the meaning of life and the meaning of its end.”

“I know what life means,” Huesyth cut in. Bedelia watched the other doctor, never pushing him to speak further as he continued. “We've existed for a hundred thousand years. In that time, a hundred billion human lives have had beginnings and ends.”

“A hundred billion lives haven't impacted yours but clearly Abigail Hobbs' life has and you seem surprised by that,” Bedelia pointed out.

He couldn’t deny it and it weighed on him. She did impact him more than he intended her to and he regretted that her memory had to die in order to keep her safe. But she was safe, he knew that much. It was all he could offer her.

“I never considered having a child,” Huesyth mused, his voice shaking slightly. “But after meeting Abigail, I understood the appeal. The opportunity to guide and support, and in many ways, direct a life.”

Bedelia furrowed her brow slightly. “You were having influence on her?”

“I was hoping I was.”

She leaned forward slightly in her seat to address him. “Young people are supposed to be the lenses through which we see ourselves living beyond this life.”

Huesyth briefly considered that but found he wasn’t necessarily agreeing. “I think of my earliest memory and project forward to what I imagine will be my death. I  _ never _ think about living beyond that span of time. Except maybe by reputation.”

“Even after this loss?” Bedelia questioned.

“More so after this loss.”

Bedelia paused slightly and then said. “Bec Reyes is a loss, too. You might grieve him as a loss.”

Even the sound of his name made a spike of real guilt rise in Huesyth’s chest. The crocodile tears beginning to dry up. “I haven't given up on Bec yet.”

She sat back again and Bedelia begun. “If they do find him guilty of killing Abigail Hobbs-”

“ _ When. _ Let's be honest,” Huesyth corrected.

“I  _ don't  _ recommend you participate in any rehabilitation effort.”

The doctor sighed softly at the denial. “I was so confident in my ability to help him, to solve him...” “To save him,” Bedelia added.

“Trying to save him, I lost Abigail. It's hard to accept that I could fail them both so profoundly.”

He thought he was putting on a fairly good show but he could feel Bedelia’s eyes on him.

 

The same day, Bec found himself back in the interrogation room, resting his head on his folded arms until a muffled hiss pulled his attention up and to the two-way mirror to his side. He stood from the table cautiously and crossed to the mirror, seeing no signs of life besides his own reflection as he approached. 

He saw nothing. Then a silhouette appeared from the darkness next to him in the mirror, as if made from it. The same antlered man from his dream standing by his side. He shuddered with horror until he came back to reality, staring into the dark glass of the mirror from his seat at the interrogation table with a dribble of blood leaking slowly from his nose.

“You’re sick, Bec,” A voice said and Bec saw Jack circle him to stand in front of him as if he’d been there for a while. It took a minute for him to think he was even real.

Startled but slightly coherent, Bec mumbled. “I- I wasn't consistent with taking my antibiotics. The fever came back.”

Hesitantly, Jack slipped his hand into his pocket before pulling a tissue, offering it to the bleeding empath. Bec accepted it, pressing it to his nose as Jack continued. “We're gonna move you to a secure medical ward. We're gonna get to the bottom of whatever it is that's wrong with you and we're gonna make sure that you get whatever kind of treatment you need.”

“And then what?” Bec questioned as he pulled the bloody tissue away from his nose. He tossed onto the table in front of him. “Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane? Have Chilton fumbling around in my head?”

Jack moved to stand by the side of the table so that he could address the empath face to face. “This job doesn't generally lend itself to optimism, all right? But I desperately want to be optimistic about an alternative to what every fiber of the evidence is telling me you've done.”

“I can't confess to something I don't remember,” Bec expressed.

“The question is, how much more is there that you don't remember?” The empath raised a questioning eyebrow at the agent so he continued. “We found your fishing lures.”

Confusedly furrowing his brow, Bec muttered. “Yeah, I should hope so. Th-they were on my desk right by the front door.”

“We found human remains amongst the materials that you made them from,” Jack said. “The human remains of Cassie Boyle, Marissa Schuur, Donald Sutcliffe, Georgia Madchen.”

And that was when all things he thought was reality shattered inside his brain. He stared numbly up at the older agent as if waiting for him to say ‘just kidding’. But the punch line never came and he was left sitting there with a face filling with horror.

“No…” The empath said softly, almost inaudible had Jack not been right there.

“Yes.”

Bec’s mind began to reel, shaking his head like it was a cruel joke, unable to accept what the older agent was telling him. He whispered again. “I wasn't... I wasn't sick when Cassie Boyle was murdered. I wasn't sick when Marissa Schuur was murdered.”

“That's not an argument you want to be making right now,” Jack said firmly with a disappointed shake of his head. “Not with me.”

Bec finally averted his eyes from the older agent, jaw going slack as he tried to think through just what Jack was telling him. “Because then I'd be a psychopath.”

Jack explained grimly. “My biggest fear is that we'll learn that you knew what you were doing the whole time.”

“You don't have to be afraid of that, Jack,” Bec added, staring into the empty wall across from him. “There is something you should be afraid of, though.”

“Yeah? What's that?” Jack asked, obviously unimpressed. He didn’t want to hear conspiracy theories anymore, he wanted a confession. An explanation may be. Something that would tell him that the man he trusted to bring killers to justice wasn’t a killer himself.

“You should be afraid of whoever's doing this to me,” The empath answered simply.

The older agent cocked an eyebrow at the empath. “Someone's doing this to you?”

“They'll be close to you,” Bec continued uninhibited. “It could be someone here who’s working with you.”

Jack straightened up, looking down on the empath. “So that's it? It's all a setup for you?”

“They know the cases. They know forensics.” He dropped his eyes to his hands twisting in his lap. “They know that I'm unstable.”

“Can you hear how paranoid you sound?” Jack asked, trying to still sound gentle as if coddling a wounded animal.

Not believing what he was about to say, but also not knowing what to believe, Bec offered with a sad smile. “Or it could just be you. Then I'd be really screwed, wouldn't I?”

He studied the older agent’s reaction and didn’t find anything that would make him guilty. Jack sighed heavily as he moved to stand in front of Bec at the table, taking a seat. “I wanted to be the one to do this. Bec Reyes, you're under arrest for murder. You have the right to remain silent...”

After Jack read him his rights, he was handcuffed again. Later, he was escorted out of the building by one of the guards, his hands chained to a belt around his waist as he was loaded into an ambulance. He sat silently across from the guard, a paramedic driving at the front. It was all too painfully familiar to let get passed him and he slipped back into the mindset of Abel Gideon. Bec looked down, took a deep breath and cracked his thumb out of place with a pained grunt to slip the cuff off one of his wrists before lunging forward at the guard.

 

“He disarmed his guard. He threw the guard and the driver from the vehicle. We found the ambulance in an alley in Dumfries. These are _ not  _ the actions of an innocent man,” Jack accused to the two doctors at Huesyth took his seat at his desk.

“They're the actions of a man who's impaired,” Alana cut in, placing a paper with a skewed looking clock drawn on it in front of them. “I had Bec draw a clock to test for cognitive dysfunction.”

The skewed nature of the drawing was familiar at that point. Huesyth observed the image with a face of concern but he had a plan for this.

“That is extreme.” He pulled out his files and slid his notebook paper drawing beside Alana’s but his was completely flawless and signed at the bottom by Bec. “Now this is the clock he drew for me two weeks ago. It's completely normal.”

“What disease progresses gradually but plateaus for lengths of time?” Alana asked as she observed the two drawings.

With a shrug, Huesyth added. “Bec has periods of clarity. We've seen him lucid and aware one moment and then the next he's not.”

“Could be some form of encephalitis.”

She was working very quickly. Huesyth couldn’t help the slight worry that rose in him as Alana seemed to be picking apart the problem with expert precision. “Autoimmune encephalitis?”

“It's hard to diagnose,” Alana reminded. “There are no tumors, no lesions. It wouldn't even show up on a brain scan unless you were looking for it.”

Trying to put the train back on track, Jack cut in harshly. “Look, just tell me if he could kill five people and not be aware of it. This doesn't feel like dementia. This is an intelligent psychopath.”

He sat up more straight in his chair as the doctors stared at him. “Look, this killer called the Hobbs' house, he warned Abigail's father.”

“I was with Bec that entire time,” Huesyth asserted.

“Did he have an opportunity to make a phone call?” Jack asked.

He pretended to think back to that day but only remembered Bec’s prickly exterior when they first met. He was glad that he held on to that prickly exterior because beneath it was a man that just as soft as he was defensive. Only to the right people, however.

Huesyth shook the thought from his mind. He couldn’t help the empath anymore and he certainly couldn’t coddle him like how he wanted to.

_ This was for Abigail _ , he reminded himself.  _ Someone had to be sacrificed. _

Huesyth described to the older agent. “Before we went to interview Garret Jacob Hobbs, he was alone in the office while I was outside loading the car with the files, but that was only for a few minutes.”

Thinking back to that day as well, Jack offered with a snap. “Dumb luck and bad bookkeeping. That's how Bec said he caught Hobbs. Now how would you say he caught him?”

Huesyth glanced to Alana as if to prepare her for what was to come. “We were looking through the files and it was as if Bec plucked his name out of a hat, based on little more than an incomplete address.”

“Let me play the devil here for a moment, Doctor,” Jack started, taking up the clock drawing and turning to Alana. “This clock test. Could Bec fake something like this? Would he be able to do that?”

After a long moment, Alana finally answered. “Yes.”

The agent and other doctor left soon after with Jack cursing under his breath at the situation. It was less than an hour later as Huesyth continued working at his desk that a familiar but noticeably soured scent wafted into his nose. The doctor perked up slightly and looked to the second story landing to spot the empath curled up against a bookshelf in the orange jumpsuit and a dark jacket. He looked small and almost frightened as he huddled against the base of the bookshelf.

Huesyth greeted softly. “Hello, Bec. How are you feeling?”

“Self-aware,” Bec answered without looking down at him.

“You frightened Alana Bloom.”

“She's confused about who I am, which I can relate to. I was thinking of going to see my sister but I thought better of it,” Bec explained before asking. “Are you confused about who I am?”

The doctor tipped his head to the side slightly as he observed the younger man. “I'm not confused. I'm skeptical. Meaning I'm willing to change my mind should the evidence change.”

“Do you believe I  _ killed _ Abigail?” Bec questioned, still without looking the doctor in the eye.

“I believe it's entirely possible, if not nearly indisputable based on how you discovered her ear.”

“If it was just Abigail, I would have believed,” Bec admitted, nodding slightly. His voice was starting to sound strained with emotion. “I-I would have believed that I got so far inside Hobbs' head that I couldn't get out.”

“But it wasn't just Abigail,” Huesyth reminded.

Slowly, Bec looked down at the doctor finally, dark eyes tired and stressed. “I know who I am.”

“No,” Huesyth disagreed softly. “No, you don’t. All sense of who you are has been distorted by your illness. You know who you are in this moment but that's not always the case, Bec.”

The empath turned away again. “I didn't kill any of them and somebody is making sure that no one believes me, Huesyth.”

Huesyth averted his eyes finally. “If we're to prove you didn't commit these murders, perhaps we should consider how you could have. And then disprove that.”

He coaxed the empath down from the second floor like a kitten out of a tree. As he settled in the main space of the office, Bec stripped off his jacket to sit opposite of Huesyth in their usual seats for a therapy session.

“If you are this killer,” Huesyth began, folding his leg over the other. “That identity runs through these events like a thread through pearls. Cassie Boyle would have been your first victim. You said her crime scene was practically gift-wrapped.”

He let his head lean backward in the chair as his mind leaked out into the real world around them. The room seemed to darken and Bec turned to face Cassie skewered on the stag head. This time however she and the head were completely painted black with a slight pearlescent sheen as if made into a statue for display in his mind’s museum.

Bec stood from his seat and approached the girl cautiously despite her being long dead. “It told me everything I needed to know to catch Garret Jacob Hobbs.”

“You had seen one of Hobbs' victims. You knew how he killed those girls,” Huesyth explained from behind him. “You may have been exploring how he killed to better understand who he was.”

Something moved around him in the darkness out of the corner of his eye, a separate and distinct shape with towering antlers prowling near Cassie’s body.

The empath responded to the doctor. “I wasn't even in Minnesota when Cassie Boyle was murdered.”

“She disappeared on a Saturday and was found on a Monday,” Huesyth retold but Bec looked up to see the antlered man towering ominously from the edge of the shadows. It's onyx body was malnourished and Bec could see its individual ribs protruding from its skin with the beast’s stomach almost caved inwards as if it had no innards. Slowly, it cocked its head as it stared at him.

“You would've had the weekend to do your work.”

But Bec shook his head, whispering without taking his eyes off the beast in the dark. “I know I didn't kill her.”

“How do you know for sure?” Bec’s mind spun for an answer but Huesyth didn’t allow him to articulate it. Continuing on with the psychological picture as Bec turned to find Marissa Schurr, mounted on antlers from the red wall of Huesyth’s office, her body also painted black. “What did you think when you first met Marissa Schuur? How much she looked like Abigail? Same height and weight, same hair color and age.”

Sarcastically bitter, Bec sneered. “How could I resist?”

“So much like his daughter,” Huesyth added. “You may have wondered why Garret Jacob Hobbs didn't kill her himself.”

But the empath fought the confusion, sickened by it. Turning away to find Sutcliffe seated behind Huesyth’s desk, nearly decapitated at the jaw and painted black like the others. The top of his head dangling over the headrest of the chair.

“Dr. Sutcliffe wasn't killed how Garret Jacob Hobbs killed. He was murdered how you imagined yourself murdering a woman only days prior.”   
“How Georgia Madchen killed her friend,” Bec tried to explain. “She dreamt she saw me killing Sutcliffe but she couldn't see my face... And then she was murdered.”

“You catch these killers by getting into their heads, but you also allow them into your own,” Huesyth said. Suddenly, he was sitting at his desk in front of Bec, completely normal unlike the onyx bodies and he gave the empath a sympathetic look. “I’m trying to help you, Bec.”

But black antlers arose from the darkness behind Huesyth, the man stag taking shape from the shadows to stare into the empath just as the doctor was doing. Its unmoving eyes sent a spike of fear through his core. It looked so similar because it shared Huesyth’s face, carved in familiar detail into its onyx head. Bec winced at the image in his head, shooting awake and trying to shake it off as he looked up into the eyes of the actual Huesyth.

“Then take me to Minnesota,” Bec demanded softly, a drop of blood leaking from his nose to drip onto the front of his jumpsuit. “I want to see where Abigail died.”

 

**BLOOMINGTON, MINNESOTA**

Huesyth drove them through the night as Bec slept fitfully in the passenger seat next to him and the next day they pulled into the driveway of the Hobbs household. The empath didn’t wait on his impromptu chauffeur as he entered the home and immediately moved into the kitchen where Abigail and her mother and father were preparing breakfast. A happy American family getting ready to eat together.

Suddenly, the phone rung on the wall, startling Bec as a sense of dread rose in him when Abigail crossed the kitchen to answer it.

“Hello? Just a second,” She turned to him as he helped prep for breakfast at the counter near the sink. “Dad? It's for you. Caller ID said it was blocked.”

Abigail handed the phone over to Bec and he puts the receiver to his ear. “Hello?”

“ _ Bec _ ,” A voice called. A chill running down his spine when his mind immediately went to the snake.

“Yes,” He answered softly.

“Bec?” His eyes opened and night time was the first thing he noticed. A painful crick in his neck made him sit up quicker from where he’d been slouched against the window of Huesyth’s Bentley. The doctor in the driver’s seat continued. “We’re here.”

Together, they tore down the crime scene tape so they could roll open the sliding glass door, moving cautiously into the room. The empath peered slightly over his shoulder to see Huesyth standing behind him, familiarity of the placement in the room led back to the memory of the second time they were in the Hobbs house but with Abigail and Alana.

_ “Are we gonna reenact the crime?” Abigail had asked. She sat up on her knees and pointed to Bec. “You be my dad,” Then back to Alana. “You be my mom,” Then to Huesyth. “And you be the man on the phone.” _

He remembered the tightness on Huesyth’s face on that, the clever glint in Abigail’s eyes. It was as if she figured it all out. A realization began to click into place in his mind. Bec dared to stare over his shoulder at the doctor only briefly before he quickly averted his eyes when Huesyth looked up at him too.

“Are we gonna reenact the crime, Huesyth?” Bec asked softly.

“If that would help you,” Huesyth offered.

Hesitantly, Bec shrunk into the shadows of the house with Huesyth following after him as they climbed the stairs into the cold foyer. They stepped into the empty kitchen and Bec stared with open-mouthed shock, dark dried blood stains and puddles everywhere.

“It's as if Abigail was supposed to die in this kitchen,” Huesyth expressed, looking around the scene with a horrified expression.

“Her throat was cut,” Bec began as he studied the scene. “She lost great gouts of blood. There's an unmistakable arterial spray-” He stopped himself, unable to form words for a moment.

“They haven't found her body.”

“Just the one piece,” Bec murmured.

“If you were in Garret Jacob Hobbs' frame of mind when you killed her, they may never find her.”

“Cause I honored every part of her?” Bec questioned.

“Perhaps you didn't come here looking for a killer,” Huesyth explained, turning back to the empath. “Perhaps you came here to find yourself. You killed a man in this very room.”

His eyes were drawn to the dark space of cabinets that Hobbs’ body found it’s final resting place in, now empty of anything. “I stared at Hobbs... and the space opposite of me assumed the shape of a man filled with swarming flies. Then I scattered them.”

“At a time when other men fear their isolation, yours has become understandable to you,” Huesyth circled Bec to stand behind him on his other side, much like how he did when he offered to rub Bec’s neck. But this time it only made a harsh feeling bubble up in the back the empath’s throat. He was scared. “You are alone because you are unique.”

“I'm as alone as you are,” The empath muttered back to him.

“If you followed the urges you kept down for so long, cultivated them as the inspirations they are, you would have become someone other than yourself.”

“I know who I am,” Bec whispered, clenching his eyes shut before opening them again. “I'm not so sure I know who you are anymore. But I am certain... that one of us killed Abigail.”

Bec moved slowly away from the doctor, turning so that they faced each other as Huesyth said. “Whoever that was killed the others.”

Suddenly, Bec raised his gun and steadied it at Huesyth’s chest. The doctor looked between the gun barrel and Bec’s face as it was shadowed by the light coming in from the windows behind him. “Are you a killer, Bec? This man standing in front of me right now. Is this who you really are?”

“I am who I've always been,” Bec ground out. “The scales have just fallen from my eyes. I can see you clearly now.”

Almost curiously, Huesyth asked. “What do you see?”

He saw the same dark swarm but it wasn’t the flies of Hobbs. It looked like the same twisting body of the snake, writhing grotesquely like black intestines and from the dark he found its eyes staring back. “You called here that morning. Abigail knew and you kept her secrets... unt-until what? Until she found out some of yours?”

Huesyth eyed the gun in Bec’s hands again. “You said it felt good to kill Garret Jacob Hobbs. Would it feel good to kill me now?”

“Oh, Garret Jacob Hobbs was a murderer,” The empath reminded. “A-Are you a murderer, Dr. Cavalli?”

The empath’s hands were starting to shake and Huesyth must have noticed how unsure he was as the doctor questioned. “What reason would I have?”

“Y-You have _ no _ traceable motive... Which is why you were so hard to see. You were just... just curious as to what I would do.” Bec’s voice was trembling just as his hands were. Disgust in himself was bubbling up his throat at the prospect of him inviting a killer like that into his bed. A tear rolled down his face, burning his eyes. “Someone like me. Someone who thinks how I think. You wanted to wind him up... and watch him go. And apparently, Dr. Cavalli... this is how I go.”

Out of the shadows, a hand was stuck out and Jack emerged. “Bec.  _ Easy _ .”

But, betrayed and confused, Bec’s finger tenses on the trigger as he brought it up to Huesyth’s head. A resounding sharp sound of a gun discharging threw Bec off until a bullet slammed into his left shoulder, knocking him down against the counter right where Hobbs had died. Bec’s blood flecked Huesyth’s face and shirt collar as he was moved out of the way by Jack’s approach of the empath. The older agent kicked the gun out of Bec’s reach, looking down at the empath with anguish as he held his gun at him.

Looking up at the other two men, Bec held Jack’s gaze. “See? See?”

His vision began to dim and blur, as it did Huesyth’s form began to shift, flickering into the dark shape of the blackened antlered man. Something moved to coil about Bec’s throat when he began to lose consciousness, breathing a cold breath into his ear as it whispered. “ **You’ve seen enough, love.** ”

 

The hospital door opened, Jack being allowed inside by one of the many FBI agents guarding the halls. Huesyth looked up briefly but relaxed when he saw who it was.

The older agent moved into the room, taking a seat in one of the chairs positioned near the end of Bec’s hospital bed where the empath lied unconscious with a part of the left side of his torso bandaged.

“The right hemisphere of in his brain was inflamed,” Huesyth explained to the agent. “They have placed him into an induced sleep and they are treating him with antiviral and steroid therapies.”

“Is he responding?” Jack questioned.

“More or less.,” Huesyth shrugged. “He's expected to make a substantial recovery.”

The beeping of Bec’s heart monitored filled the tense air for a moment before Jack asked. “Would you have gone to Minnesota with him if he didn't have a gun on you?”

“I would have wanted to,” Huesyth revealed. “I believe I've failed to satisfy my obligation to Bec, more than I care to admit.”

“Well, he's not your victim, Doctor.”

“He isn’t yours either.”

Jack considered that, not quite sure if that was the case. “You know, in my time I've seen people broken by the world. I've seen them broken in all kinds of hideous and offhanded ways, but never like this...”

The agent sighed, leaning back in his chair. Huesyth added. “No one in this room will be the same.”

 

That night, Huesyth removed the elegant, glass dome from the plate of food he had brought as Bedelia poured them wine. “Tête de veau en sauce verte.”

“Smells like a bonfire,” Bedelia commented after taking a deep breath.

“I smoked the veal on a pyre of dry hay,” Huesyth explained as he cut and plated the food. “It imparts a unique smoldering flavor to the meat and to the room.”

The blonde woman sat at her place setting. “This is an unexpected treat.”

“Thank you for indulging me.”

She looked him up and down, studying him firmly. “You seemed like you needed to talk.”

“And since you refuse invitations to my dinner table, this is the only way I could cook for you,” Huesyth added, sitting across the table from Bedelia.

Cutting to the chase, Bedelia asked. “What's on your mind, Huesyth?”

They sipped their wine at the same time before Huesyth answered, for once honestly. “I'm going to see Bec tomorrow.”

She stared at him for a moment, then through him as her eyes averted. “As a patient or as… more than that?”

“As a farewell,” He explained before adding. “Of sorts.”

Bedelia shifted slightly in her chair. “I thought Mr. Reyes was finally going to be the patient who cost you your life.”

Huesyth sighed softly. “He didn't cost me my life. He cost Abigail hers. Your veal is getting cold.”

Realizing she had barely looked at it, Bedelia cut into her meat. “Controversial dish. Veal.” She took a bite, savoring it with a gentle hum.

“Those who denounce veal often cite the young age at which the animals are killed, when they are in fact older than many pigs going to slaughter.”

Bedelia paused, then brought the subject back to the light. “You have to be careful, Huesyth. They are starting to see your pattern.”

“What pattern would that be?”

“You develop relationships with patients who are prone to violence.  _ That _ pattern.” Huesyth stilled at her profile of him and Bedelia continued. “Under scrutiny, Jack Crawford's beliefs about you might start to unravel.”

“Tell me, Dr. du Maurier... Have your beliefs about me begun to unravel?”

 

The security gate buzzed and the guards opened it to allow him inside. He slowed as the gate closed behind him, stopping to take a deep breath, scenting the air and taking in the surroundings. The familiar smell finally found him and his eyes slid open again.

He stalked down the block, conscious of the other inmates but paying them no mind as he approached one of the last cells on the block. Within its bare walls, Bec sat on his simple bed in a dark blue jumpsuit issued by the hospital.

Huesyth paused briefly, admiring his work before greeting. “Hello, Bec.”

Suddenly very aware of the other man’s presence, the empath stood from the bed, moving to stand in the middle of his cell so he could see the doctor through the gaps in the bars. They appraised each other through the safety barrier before Bec returned the greeting without any warm emotion. “Hello, Dr. Cavalli.”

Slowly, a smirk spread across Huesyth’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NBC's Hannibal, nor its script and characters, and I don't make any money off of this fic. I rewrote it for me and a friend of mine purely for fun as a way to explore the events but with our original characters and just decided to start posting it.
> 
> New chapter every Wednesday!!

**Author's Note:**

> New chapter every Wednesday!!


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